I will have our reckoning. It will be a fair fight and I will kill him. If you try anything now, I will explode the device, and whoever is in the house will be vaporized. Do you understand?”
Alexa nodded.
“If you scream, I will set off the device, stroll up to Massey and Mrs. Gardner, which we both know I can do, and kill them inside this establishment. On all of this, and I mean every bit of it, you have my word. Please tell me you understand.”
Alexa nodded again.
“Oh, and there’s one other thing you should see. Just in case you don’t grasp the entire situation.”
Styer stood and went into the bedroom. When he came back, he was not alone. Cynthia Gardner’s eyes were wild, her hands behind her back, her mouth covered with tape. Around her waist was a belt containing a brick of explosives with a detonator and a receiver attached to it. Styer pushed her roughly onto the couch and she blinked rapidly, looking from Alexa to Styer, confusion and fear clouding her features.
Styer came around the table and jerked the tape from Alexa’s mouth. “Alexa, do you know Cynthia Gardner? I told you she was all right. Cynthia, meet FBI Agent Alexa Keen. She’s an abduction specialist who has found you against all odds.”
Cynthia turned toward Alexa, alert and terrified.
“So you didn’t know I had her?” Styer said. “You being the world’s leading abduction expert?”
Styer picked up Alexa’s purse, took out her Glock, removed the magazine, jacked the receiver, and caught the round in the air. He slowly thumbed each of the rounds from the magazine into the bowl along with his nail clippings. That done, he slammed the empty magazine into the gun’s handle, tossed the other loaded magazines on the couch, and put the Glock back into her purse.
“I won’t hesitate to kill her. You believe me, I hope. Cyn’s explosive is rigged to the same signal and will go off in sync with the one in her home. Double jeopardy, you see. I think I’ve covered all my bases.”
Lifting his cell phone, he checked the readout, and put it into his left hand, thumb on the SEND button. “One queer move and I’ll press it.”
“Okay,” Alexa said.
“I know you may think I’m bluffing so I want to show you something.” He reached into his jacket pocket and showed her a Polaroid of him holding a bomb made of eight blocks of explosive in the foyer of the Gardner house.
“I’m pretty photogenic, don’t you think?” he said.
“Jesus,” Alexa said.
“Do as I say and you will live. I want your word.”
“It’s your game,” Alexa said.
Styer cut the cable ties on Alexa’s ankles and unlocked her handcuffs. She sat up, rubbing her wrists slowly.
Cynthia was sobbing hysterically.
“It’s okay, Cynthia. He won’t do anything if we do as he says.”
“Now, Cynthia,” Styer said. “You are going to make a call. If you say exactly what I tell you, you’ll be fine. If you screw this up, you are going to be very dead.”
Cynthia nodded slowly as she locked eyes with Alexa. “Cynthia, do exactly what he says,” Alexa told the girl.
98
Pierce Mulvane had explained to his wife that with Kurt Klein visiting he wasn’t going to make it home tomorrow for his usual Sunday visit with her and the kids. He listened patiently to her long litany of complaints, all the while going over the stack of gamblers’ complaints passed up to him from his managers. Most of the complaints were no more important to him than the tripe his wife came up with about him missing his son’s soccer finals, or his daughter’s hidden candy stashes, or his wife’s inability to find decent shoes in her size that were the right color. Why they couldn’t live in Vegas, where they had everything, was simply beyond her. He promised her that when River Royale was up and running, the shops would stock her sizes and colors, and she’d never have to mention Las Vegas again-and neither would anybody else.
By the time he finally told her he would get up on Wednesday to spend the night, he had initialed the customers’ gripe reports and placed them into a stack for further consideration, probably around the time the temperature of hell finally dropped below thirty-two degrees.
Pierce’s phone buzzed.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Pierce,” Kurt Klein said. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Absolutely not. I was just finishing up some paperwork. What can I do for you?”
“One of my security men was in the model room a few minutes ago and he reported to me that he caught a man with a camera who claims to be from one of the newspapers in Memphis, taking pictures of the resort model.”
“That room was locked,” Pierce said.
“Maybe one of your people let him in. My man does not think he is who he says he is, and he may be with a competitor. They found some interesting items in his room-number seven ten. I am going to go down myself in a minute. Meet me there?”
“I’ll be right there as soon as I call Tug. He’s very good at this sort of thing. Don’t you think you should stay clear of it?”
“Good thinking. But use Steffan’s people, no need to hassle Tug. Meet me up here after you have a look and we will decide what action is required.”
Pierce hung up. If pictures of the resort were released before the official press conference, it would greatly lessen the impact of the announcement. When over a billion dollars was on the line, care had to be taken.
Pierce tried to call Tug anyway, but there was no answer. He went to the elevator and got off on the seventh floor. One of Klein’s beefy security men waited in the hall beside the door. As Pierce drew close, the man gave him a troubled smile. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Mulvane,” he said, opening the door. “I think you will find this very disturbing.”
Pierce went through the door into the short hallway and the security man came in behind him. The first thing he noticed were the leather suitcases beside a laundry cart. A sheet of plastic covered the floor and there was more covering the furniture. He wondered what the guest was up to that had made protective covering necessary. When he realized that the suitcases were just like his, the bathroom door opened, and Finch stepped out wearing a raincoat. Even as the guard muscled Pierce farther into the room and onto the plastic, Pierce had no idea why Finch was aiming a gun at him.
99
Albert White took off his tie and put it in the drawer along with his.38. He took the two speed loaders from his jacket pocket and tossed them in before closing and locking the drawer. In the five years since his wife left him for his second cousin, a roofer, he had rarely spent any of his off time-and there was less and less of that-with other people. He didn’t much care for company. Now he was going to spend the evening with a South African jerk-off and two of his pals. The prospect made him bone-tired. Why the old Kraut hadn’t just given him a cash bonus was beyond him. He was going to sit in a restaurant for a couple of hours, eat a thick steak. Then instead of lying down, which is what he’d want to do, he would have to go out carousing with the sons of bitches. And he’d bet ten dollars against a donut they’d want free trim at casino expense.
He looked at his watch and frowned. Why was it that time passed so quickly when something unpleasant was coming at you, and so slowly when there was something tasty ahead? Well, if things worked out as planned, he’d
