Velocity

Looming over the immediate vicinity was one of the towering rectangular Roman-themed buildings sporting a red neon Caesars Palace sign at its upper periphery. Keeping her focus on Guevara’s last known location, she ran through the well-lit tented area, then along a narrow passageway that led to the hotel.

Tall, slender evergreens rose to her right, which bordered the intensely lit main entrance to the Caesars complex. Limousines and luxury sedans were parked beneath the long and broad overhang, where bellmen awaited the next approaching vehicle ferrying a tip-bearing arrival.

There! Beneath the bright lights of the hotel’s brick plaza.

Dixon took off in Guevara’s direction, pulling her Glock with her right hand and fumbling for her badge with the left. It did not say “federal task force officer,” and would thus carry no jurisdiction in Nevada. But it would have the intended effect. Those in the vicinity would know she had a legitimate reason for brandishing a pistol and running through the crowds.

Yet no one seemed to notice. Some glanced in her direction, but the density of people provided adequate cover.

Seconds later, Dixon burst through the crowd. Guevara was nowhere nearby. She turned in a circle, looking, hoping—and then saw him behind the dark glass of the main entry doors. She scaled the steps and shoulder- slammed her way into the lobby. She almost froze, taken by the grandeur before her: dramatic ceiling lighting and frescoes, rose quartz columns, blown glass chandeliers, black and ivory marble everywhere—and a central fountain that spouted water into a basin below three scantily clad limestone women.

Images of lavish, elegant opulence plowed through her brain, but she didn’t have time to process any of it because the lobby was more expansive than the eye could immediately comprehend. Cesar Guevara was not stopping to take in the surroundings, nor was he evaluating its magnificence. He was moving at a rapid pace into the casino. And now, so was Dixon.

A violet, gold, black, and burgundy carpet extended throughout semiprivate and public gambling areas.

“Can I help you?” a security guard asked, eyeing first her badge, then the Glock.

“I’m following a suspect. Outta my way,” Dixon said as she edged around him.

“Hey—hold on a second—”

Dixon held up her badge. “Get the fuck out of my way!”

“You got a warrant? You can’t just walk in here with a gun—” he said, then maneuvered himself in front of her.

“I’m a federal agent,” she said, moving her head to see around him in hopes of catching a visual of Guevara. “Move!”

“That’s not what your badge says,” he said, then grabbed her arm. She was about to do something nasty to his closely held male compadres when she broke free, then shoved him hard into a crowd of youths passing by. He tripped backward and sprawled to the floor.

But as she moved on, she heard him key his two-way. Reinforcements would be en route—very shortly, she surmised.

Dixon moved deeper into the gambling areas, thick with people and the pungent smell of perfume and cigarette smoke. Guevara had to be around here somewhere. As her eyes roamed the large room, beeps and whirls sounding in her head off in the distance, she felt a creeping sense of anxiety. Had he gotten away?

Had she blown it?

VAIL PUSHED HER WAY through the crowd, then sprinted across the carport and into the Bellagio’s lobby. People of all ages milled about in seemingly haphazard activity. She needed to find someone who knew about the hotel.

To her left, a suited man with a brass nametag.

She dug out her creds and held them as she ran left, toward the bellman’s station, an ivory and gold counter that stood in front of a wall-size floral mural. “The fountains, the water—” She stopped, collected herself. Be coherent. “The water outside—the lake. There are arches, aqueducts that go under the roadway. Where do they lead?”

The bellman leaned back slightly and swung his head toward the front of the building. Apparently the answers weren’t there, because he turned back to Vail and shrugged. “I—I don’t know. I’ve never been asked that question. People usually want to know how often the fountains go off, how many stories into the air the water reaches—”

Vail swung her head around the lobby. “Anyone who might know?”

“You can ask at registration. They might be able to call a manager—”

With five long strides, Vail covered the distance to the nearby desk, which stretched across the cavernous room as far as she could see into the distance. She slapped a hand on the tan granite countertop in front of a woman who was checking in a guest, shoved her badge forward, and said, “The goddamn fountain—I need someone who can tell me where the water goes.”

The guest gave her a dirty look for being so rude—but the eyes of the hotel service worker were wide with shock and glued to Vail’s credentials case. She seemed to be reading every word.

Vail flicked it closed and snagged her attention. “A manager. Call a goddamn manager.”

The woman stumbled over some words, then reached for a phone and dialed. She spoke into the handset, then lowered it and said, “He’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“I don’t have a few minutes.” Vail pulled her radio. “Vail to Mann. Over.”

A second later, her two-way crackled. “Mann.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“We swung around to assist SWAT, why?”

“Those fountains at the Bellagio. Where do they lead? I mean, there’s gotta be pipes, right? Some kind of plumbing, machinery and computers or something that plays and synchronizes the jets to the music. Right?”

“Affirmative. One of the designers once showed me around. He took me down to ‘the back of the house,’ which runs underneath the entire property. Catering tunnels, a massive kitchen, the pump rooms and maintenance shop for the fountain, all sorts of shit like that.”

“Okay, listen to me. Robby jumped into the lake. He may’ve been shot but I don’t know. There are arches, aqueducts that look like they go under the roadway that leads up to the hotel.”

“Affirmative. Bellagio Drive, south area of the lake. But those aqueducts are fake. They don’t lead anywhere. Do you see him on the lake?”

“I’m in the lobby. There’s some kind of fog hanging over the water. I couldn’t see shit.”

“Part of the show. It’ll lift in a few minutes.”

“There were assholes shooting at him. If I’m Robby, I’m swimming like Michael Phelps trying to get away. The drop from the roadway is about a dozen feet; I don’t think there’s a way to climb up out of the water. Is there any outlet into the hotel? Any way in?”

“North side of the lake,” Mann said. “There’s an opening in the fake rock that leads into the maintenance shop for the fountain. I think they called it the Bat Cave. From what I remember, there’s a boat launching ramp that leads into the cave. It’s the only place he can go. Find that and you’ll find Robby.”

“How do I get there?”

“Ask how to get down to ‘the back of the house.’ The corridor will lead to the north end of the complex.”

“Got it. Over.” Vail shoved the radio in her back pocket and pivoted in a circle. Signs for everything except “the back of the house.”

She stopped herself from thinking like a woman looking for a hotel room and thought like a cop. She was in a casino, a place filled with surveillance cameras. And security guards. Security guards would know more about the layout of the hotel’s underbelly and hidden locations than a bellman.

She reached into her holster and pulled out her Glock, held it up in one hand and her creds in the other. Then she started yelling. “FBI! Everyone down!”

Screams. Movement. People hitting the floor. Now that’s more like it. Security should be here any second. Damn, I should’ve thought of this sooner.

Sure enough, two guards dressed in red blazers and black pants approached on the run, from the direction of the casino that fed into the lobby.

They were yelling at her, but that was a game Vail always won.