Black Scorpion (42 page)

Raven shivered. “Tell me, Ismael, did you arrange for some pestilence to spread through the victims? Did you make sure I'd see a young girl hugging her dead mother just as I was left to do?”

“I knew you'd see
something
, enough to move you to the kind of action my words never would have.”

“So I take out Black Scorpion the man, but his organization is still out there. Then what? Someone else moves in, someone else takes over.” Raven stopped and held her stare upon him, watching him try to hide the guilt but also the affirmation in his eyes. “What then, Ismael?”

“You overestimate me, Raven.”

“No, Ismael, I
underestimated
you. You know their network better than anyone. All the nooks, all the crannies, where all the cells are based because that's how the money comes in. You know things about Dracu nobody else does; you've been his proxy for a long time.”

Saltuk shook his head, looking genuinely miffed. “Haven't I always taken care of you?”

“Only because it suited your interests. But I'm going to let you make amends for that and all the lies.” Raven stopped and let her gaze go flat as polished steel. “You're going to tell me everything you know; the locations of Black Scorpion's cells, where it's headquartered all across the world, its leadership, and the government officials the organization holds in its pocket everywhere.”

“Even if I could…”

“We both know you can, Ismael. Get the information I need together. Immediately. If I show up somewhere like this again, I'll be the last sight you ever see.”

“Black Scorpion's destruction will serve far more powerful interests than me. I'm not alone in this, you need to know that.”

Raven narrowed her gaze on him. “No, you're not. Now you're working for me.”

 

NINETY-THREE

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“We need to prep for the hearing,” Naomi repeated.

“Can't you see I'm busy?” Michael asked her from the floor, where he was tussling with Nero.

“You always do that when you're stressed out.”

“Do what?”

“Play with that overgrown house cat. Maybe it's because you hope he bites you.”

Michael sat up, continuing to stroke Nero after the panther laid his head on his lap. “More like because I've already been bitten.”

“The hearing's in two days. We need to go in there loaded for bear, not big cat.”

Nero purred loudly at that.

“And we will,” Michael said, trying to sound more confident than he was. “Challenges are nothing new for us, Naomi. And right now the threat Black Scorpion poses is worse than anything Kern and his commission can come up with. It's not just my future that's at stake here anymore.”

“You're talking about Dracu? What's he after, Michael?”

“At the farm, he told me I was missing the point, but that I'd see it soon enough; the whole world would. Four years ago, Raven rescued a German scientist for him from a Russian gulag. A man named Niels Taupmann. I looked him up on the flight home. At the time of his purported death in a plane crash that killed over a hundred passengers in Russia, Taupmann was the world's foremost IT authority on data encryption to ward off cyberattacks.”

“Data encryption,” Naomi repeated, not bothering to hide her shock at what Michael had just said. “Remember what I told you about the start-up technology company that had cornered the market with its Guardian chip?”

“Sure.”

“The company's called Sentinel Technologies. Care to guess whose fund basically owns it?”

“Aldridge Sterling.”

“You guessed it.”

*   *   *

“So, let's assume for the sake of argument that the Guardian chip is Taupmann's creation,” Michael continued. “You know what you're suggesting?”

“That Sterling, one of the richest men in the world, and Vladimir Dracu, one of the most dangerous criminals alive, are somehow connected.”

“Don't forget we know for a fact Sterling's been scooping up all our available bonds now trading at their lowest level ever. And considering the fact that his fund never covered casino investments, that can't be a coincidence.”

“And it leads straight to Commissioner Kern,” Naomi concluded. “All the more reason to be ready for whatever he has to throw at us at the hearing.”

“Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Dracu shows up as a witness and Kern allows him to testify.”

 

NINETY-FOUR

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Michael and Scarlett lay in bed, enjoying the darkness that seemed to make the world much smaller, Nero nestled between them taking the covers in his mouth every time either of them stopped petting him.

“He doesn't scare you,” Michael noted.

“He would have a week ago,” she said, shifting around to better face him. “We need whatever's left of Josephus's manuscript back.”

“It doesn't matter now.”

“Yes, Michael, it does.” She stopped stroking Nero and swallowed hard. “Because I need to
know
.”

“Know what?”

“The truth.”

“We know plenty already.”

“But not enough. I'm talking about the price those who've possessed the medallion have paid.”

“What's the difference?”

Nero took the bedcovers in his mouth and began gnawing at them until Scarlett resumed petting him. “It comes with a curse as well as a blessing. I think the Roman order Caesar dispatched uncovered the fact that it works only for those worthy to possess it.”

“Worthy? What would a frail, frightened little boy be worthy of?”

“Fate, Michael. You've been chosen for some reason by a higher power, some cosmic force. Call it God, call it whatever you want. I can't believe I'm actually saying that, but it's what I believe. What the Romans blamed for a storm, a pestilence, or a famine. Or celebrated for delivering a great victory or a bounty. I've been all over the world these past five years searching for a truth that now scares the hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“Because of the price you may have to pay for what comes with it, the price
I
may have to pay,” Scarlett added, turning away.

Michael took his hand off Nero long enough to turn her back toward him, meeting his gaze. “Haven't I saved your life twice already? Wouldn't you call that fate, too?”

“Yes, and that's the point. Because we're tempting it,
I'm
tempting it by being close to you. There's no place for me in this, no place for anything that comes between you and that relic. That's why it must be worn against the skin, close to the heart. You see the point?”

“No, I don't. I can have it both ways. Nothing's going to come between us,” he said, and kissed her as Nero started tearing at the bedcovers with his teeth.

They let him, holding each other as best they could with the big cat between them. Michael felt Scarlett trembling and eased her slightly away.

“What is it?” he asked, still holding her at the shoulders. “What is it you're not telling me?”

Scarlett cleared her throat, looked away briefly. “Oh, I have a gift for you,” she said instead of answering.

She reached under the bed and came up with a beautifully wrapped box, handing it to Michael, who sat up to take it. Nero watched curiously as he tore it open like a boy on Christmas morning, extracting an assemblage of stitched-together, elegant but very strong dark leather that looked like a combination of a harness and a holster. He held it up and noticed a webbed pocket on its left-hand side.

“I fitted it to the exact specifications of your relic, something to hold it without worry of it being lost or torn free.”

Michael looped his arm through it, much like a shoulder holster. The slot tailored for the medallion rested directly over his heart and he squeezed his gold relic snugly into place.

“A perfect fit,” he noted, stretching his arms.

“So you'll always think of me when you're wearing it,” Scarlett said, and Michael kissed her again.

He broke the embrace only when his phone buzzed with an incoming text. He snatched the Galaxy off his night table and saw the text was from Alexander.

I FOUND HIM.

 

NINETY-FIVE

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“Members only,” the big thug said, blocking Alexander's route to an unmarked slab of a steel door.

“How do I join?” Alexander asked, through the dim light.

“You can't, friend.”

“Wrong answer,” Alexander said and unleashed a quick flurry of blows that dropped the big man to the pavement.

Alexander dragged the man with him through the steel door, finding himself at the top of a stairway that spiraled downward under dim light shed only by translucent bulbs recessed into the wall at each step. He stripped the man of his gun, bound his hands with plastic cuffs, and used a kerchief as a gag. It would likely take several minutes to find him, by which time Alexander would be gone with the man he'd come for in tow.

*   *   *

Michael sat in front of the camera that had been set up in his home office with him seated before the bookshelves, the door closed so Nero couldn't wander in as his live interview with CNN was transpiring. He couldn't see the host who would be posing the questions, could only hear her thanks to an earpiece wedged into his ear and connected to a power pack clipped to his belt.

“We go live in five,” he heard through the earpiece, “four, three, two, one…”

*   *   *

It had been Naomi who'd ordered Seven Sins security personnel to find the man responsible for Amanda Johansen's disappearance. They'd employed facial recognition software of Amanda as featured in an Elysium program through all the security cameras placed around the Seven Sins. Ultimately, the best they could do was a single shot of Amanda getting into a Cadillac sedan. The face of the man accompanying her was obscured, but his license plate wasn't:
IPLEASUREU
. And a call to a contact at the Las Vegas police had identified the owner as one Victor Argos who, according to police, was known to regularly frequent a certain underground strip club on Industrial Road. Running parallel to the Strip, that road held virtually all of the city's X-rated nightlife, including a high-end lounge called the Pleasure Dome that catered almost exclusively to a foreign and high-roller clientele.

It was what transpired in the private club located adjacent to the Pleasure Dome, accessible through a secret entrance that led to an underground level, though, that interested Alexander most. And he descended the stairs into the artificially cool air scented by hidden misters struck by the odd sensation he was entering hell itself.

A big Asian stepped out when he neared the bottom, unleashing a flurry of martial arts strikes and kicks. Alexander stepped back, working his body from side to side to avoid the blows that whistled past close enough to rustle his hair. Then he darted inside a more desperate blow, wedged a thumb into the man's eye and used his other arm to force the man backward into a wall padded softly in black.

“One chance,” he said, free hand lodged strategically against the man's throat and larynx. “Victor Argos. Where can I find him?”

The man started to struggle. Alexander pressed just a bit harder.

“I exert any more pressure, you'll hear a crack and you'll never speak again. So one last time, where can I find Victor Argos?”

The big Asian man's eyes tilted sideways, a single quivering hand rising to point in the same direction toward a door at the end of the hall.

“Now that wasn't so hard, was it?” Alexander said, pressing just hard enough to shut off the man's air so he'd pass out.

*   *   *

“Mr. Tiranno, what do you have to say about the allegations that led to you being barred from your own casino earlier today?”

“You mean, besides the fact that they're baseless?” Michael said, meaning every word of it as he pictured this going live out to millions of homes on television, the Internet and, later, YouTube. “As you know, Barbara, such absurd allegations are nothing new. I've had them lodged against me ever since I got started in Vegas. And now that someone never accepted into this exclusive club operated by a select few is prepared to expand here and abroad, they've resurfaced.”

“Are you saying the other casino owners are jealous?”

“No, I'm saying competition is very real and cutthroat in Las Vegas and that these allegations are completely false.”

*   *   *

Alexander waited for the man to slump down the wall before proceeding through a twisted take on Dante's nine circles of hell. Literally, because that's how many doors the hall held, sloped slightly downward. The light mist providing an artificially fragrant scent collected in a thin cloud just below the black drop ceiling. Music of the techno variety blared from unseen speakers, tuned low to provide ambient background noise until the first door Alexander approached was thrust open, allowing louder riffs to emerge with a hulking shape.

The man, garbed in black as all the others were, was carrying a serving tray he quickly shed to the floor in favor of the pistol wedged in his belt.

“Hey!” he started.

And stopped. Hesitating not for a moment, Alexander barreled into him, slamming a knee into his groin and then the same knee into his face when the man doubled over. Alexander felt his nose mash on impact, his cheekbones seeming to buckle as he let out a wheezing sound like air fleeing a balloon.

Alerted by the sound of glass breaking from the discarded tray, another pair of lineman-size figures rushed Alexander out of the darkness, seeming to rise out of the floor.