Chess Team would risk their lives to take me down or learn what I’m really up to. How is this any different? But if it makes you feel any better, security is already conducting a sweep of the guests. They’ve probably already identified some of your team.”
King narrowed his eyes, took a breath, and then nodded. “Deal.”
Brown flipped the cards over with deliberate slowness, his gaze never leaving King’s face.
King felt another measure of hope as he glanced down at his first card: the ace of hearts.
Brown turned over the king of spades for himself.
King was a little disappointed to see that his second card was the six of clubs. Seven or seventeen, he thought.
Brown’s next card was the ten of hearts.
Twenty. Crap.
Without waiting for a prompt, Brown dealt King another card: Eight of diamonds. “Fifteen,” he said. “You need a five to draw, six to win.”
He turned over another card, glanced at it, and then deposited it in front of King. It was the queen of spades.
King sagged back in his chair.
“Luck is a fickle bitch,” Brown observed coldly. “Time to settle your account, Sigler. Let’s have it.”
For a moment, King pondered putting the gambler on a wild goose chase-giving him bogus radio frequencies, identifying the few names he remembered from the guest list as Chess Team operators in disguise-but ultimately all that would accomplish would be to piss his foe off. Finally, he said, “The joke’s on you, Brown. There is no team. Not in the field, at least.”
Anger glinted in Brown’s eyes. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I were. It would be nice to think that Bishop was waiting for my signal to bust in here and take your head off. But this was a solo op; no backup, minimum footprint.”
Brown slammed the cards down on the desk. “You’re lying,” he repeated, his voice taut like a wire about to snap.
“I gave you my word,” King persisted, not sure why it mattered. “I’m not lying to you. I would have preferred a tactical assault, but it was too risky. We knew you’d be here, exposed, so we decided to try a covert approach.” He rattled off the details of the scheme, omitting only the matter of where he had left Downey. He could tell that the gambler was still unconvinced, so he added. “I would never have taken the bet if it meant actually risking the lives of my team. But I had to make you think it was important.”
“It doesn’t matter. I never thought you’d tell me the truth, and I don’t have the time or patience to wring the truth out of you.” Brown shook his head, rose to his feet and strode for the door. “But at least I will have the satisfaction of knowing that you won’t be interfering with my activities again.”
“One last game,” King called out, craning his head around to follow the other man’s progress. “For everything.”
Brown stopped, but did not look back. “You don’t have anything left to bet.”
“No, but you do.” King’s mind was racing to come up with a plan. “Look at yourself. ‘A schmuck from Atlantic City.’ That’s what you said, right? You wanted more than that, and now you’ve got it. You’ve got everything. Brainstorm practically runs the whole world, right? So why aren’t you satisfied?”
King saw he had Brown’s attention… but what to do with it?
“Because once you’ve won everything, what’s the point? You didn’t want more power, more respect. That never really mattered to you. You wanted a bigger game.”
The gambler slowly turned around, still saying nothing.
“So, you’re right. I might not have anything left to bet, but that’s not why you play the game, is it? What do you say, Brown? Take a chance?”
“It’s a very tempting proposition, Sigler.” Brown blinked, then turned and opened the door. The noise of the casino briefly filled the room then was silenced as the door closed behind the two security men who now advanced, pistols already in hand.
“You’ve been a worthy opponent,” Brown said. “But this was only ever a momentary diversion. I’m playing a much bigger game than you can possibly imagine. And now I’m afraid your luck truly has run out.”
ACTION/REACTION
14
Paris-2015 UTC/Local
Brown circled around his desk, picking up the two phones-King’s dedicated Chess Team phone and the quantum device-and casually slipped them in a pocket as he moved. King followed the gambler in his peripheral vision, but his primary focus was on the guards.
He had not expected to accomplish anything with his little game of chance. Certainly, he’d harbored no illusions that it might lead to his freedom, but even as he probed Brown for information, he’d wrestled with the matter of how to escape. Unfortunately, the plastic zip-tie binding his wrists together had not yielded a single millimeter to his surreptitious efforts, and that severely limited his options. His only chance would come when they moved him from the office to some out of the way corner of the riverboat, presumably the place where they intended to execute him, and that would mean cutting it very close.
As the two security men approached, King threw his weight to the side, toppling his chair over. He slammed onto his left shoulder, the impact driving the air from his lungs in a whoosh and sending a spike of pain through his head, but he’d done what he could to prepare himself for the crash and recovered his wits quickly.
The guards saw what he was doing and reacted without thinking, rushing forward to prevent what looked like an escape attempt, and that was exactly what King had been hoping for. Although the chair remained intact and his arms were still securely bound, one of the pair got close enough for King to wrap his nerveless fingers around the man’s ankle.
The guard spat an oath as he wrenched his leg free of King’s grasp.
The other man chuckled. “I told you he wouldn’t go quietly.”
The words were barely spoken when King twisted his body and snaked out a foot to sweep the second guard’s feet out from under him. The man’s arms windmilled as he landed flat on his back alongside King, and as he fell, King twisted again and kicked savagely at the man’s head. Two solid strikes left the man senseless on the floor.
The first guard reacted instantly, bringing his gun around and taking aim at King’s writhing form, but even as he did, something changed in his eyes. He blinked, as if unable to bring his target into focus, and then abruptly crumpled to the ground. The tetrodotoxin, administered when King had pressed his ring against the man’s leg, had done its job quickly.
Brown watched in disbelief as the melee, which had lasted only a couple of seconds, abruptly ended with both of his men incapacitated, but when King began maneuvering closer to one of the fallen guards, hoping to find a knife with which to cut himself free, the gambler sprang into action. He dashed around the desk and snatched up one of the fallen pistols.
King could tell by the uncertain way Brown held the weapon that the man was unused to this sort of thing. He had built his success on manipulation and playing the probabilities, and he had always relied on hirelings to take care of the dirty work. But the gun was a Glock 17-no bothersome safety to fumble with-and with only about ten feet between them, there was little chance that Brown would miss if he pulled the trigger.
King pushed closer to the guard he had dosed with the ring, but kept his eyes on Brown. “You’re probably responsible for hundreds, maybe thousands of deaths, but I’ll bet you’ve never had to do the deed yourself,” he said. “It’s one thing to order someone’s death, but pulling the trigger yourself? Not as easy as you thought it would be.”
Now he was the one gambling, and he was betting his life on the fact that his taunts would actually make Brown stop and think-not about the consequences of shooting him, but rather about how he still possessed a small
