Stacked Deck

When she laid down her set, she said, “You’re right, I do have a pair of fours, and one extra.”

He was stunned. “You limped in, then slow-played when you had them from the get-go?” He seemed amazed and angered that someone would do that.

“It’s called a winning tactic.”

He stared at her cards, his face twisted in bitter fury mixed with that sick feeling all gamblers know so well. The shock of falling into total ruin.

“I’ve had crap all damn day,” he protested, throwing his cards across the table.

“Maybe it’s not the cards,” she said. “Maybe it’s how you play them.”

She could see the rage in his eyes. He wanted to lunge across the table and grab her by the throat, but the other men in the room were her friends on the poker circuit, not his. He continued venting his anger verbally.

At that moment Beth got yet another buzz from her PDA, at least the fifth or sixth since the game had started. She’d been ignoring the outside world’s attempts to contact her, but now that the game was over she reached in her black shoulder bag, glanced at the message and swore under her breath.

It was the last person on earth she wanted a message from right now—Delphi, her contact with Oracle.

She interrupted her opponent’s verbal tirade. “Sorry, I’ll have to catch your trash talk on another day.”

In the wake of his swearing and the laughter from the other men at the table, Beth slipped out through the glass doors onto the balcony.

She read and reread the text message with consternation and disbelief. This was incredibly bad timing. She was being mission-tasked and Delphi wanted her at the Oracle town house in Virginia ASAP. In the past, she’d been assigned missions that were analysis-based, math and statistics being her area of expertise. This sounded very different. And agents were almost never summoned to the Virginia office.

Why now? Why today?

Using her thumbs like little pistons, she sent a message back requesting a replacement because she was involved in her own urgent business. She could have called Delphi and spoken to her, but not here.

A negative reply returned instantly. Code red. That meant critical and it meant now.

For the first time in her career, Bethany seriously considered the ramifications of refusing an assignment.

She knew if she was working directly for the Feds, NSA or CIA the problem would have been simple. Take the assignment or resign.

But Oracle agents worked for an intelligence agency that existed without mandate or congressional oversight. It didn’t show up on any traditional radar, and Beth wasn’t sure what the protocol was for refusing a mission.

I’m not going to Virginia, she thought. Not now. I’ll call in later, when I’m home. She decided that if Allison Gracelyn was available, she’d talk to her. She’d understand. Allison worked with Oracle, too, and she was the one person who could get Bethany released from the assignment.

She went back inside. The men were drinking cognac and smoking cigars, except for her nemesis. He had made a hasty and bitter departure. She’d find him later with her proposition.

“Some of us are better losers than others,” Manny Kirk, the owner of the house and a longtime friend said.

She nodded. “That’s because you, unlike our friend, know you’ll have a chance to get your money back.”

The men laughed.

She added, “I’d love to stay and party, but I have some business that needs immediate attention.”

There were a dozen or so “poker houses” owned by these guys and their friends scattered around Vegas. Games went on day and night. Partying for them wasn’t about drugs and fast women; they were the nerds of the party world and preferred playing pool, video games and more poker on the Internet. These young hotshots in this new world of poker had the good life by the tail.

“I guess you want the money,” Manny said.

She smiled. “That’s why we live and breathe, is it not?”

In the end, unlike the big TV games where scantily clad casino girls brought out trays of money, this was much more subdued.

While the money was being retrieved from a safe, she called Curtis Sault, a bodyguard she employed whenever she was in a big game in Vegas. He’d dropped her off the previous day and now she was in need of a fast exit. The ex-Army Ranger turned professional bodyguard had been told, if she won, he’d be in for a substantial bonus.

She transferred the quarter mil to an expandable travel bag, thanked her host and the other players and then left. With the bag of loot slung over one shoulder, her purse over the other, she felt a little like a happy bank robber.

It was fully dark now when she spotted Curtis Sault roaring up the road in his vintage ’58 Corvette. He pulled over the tricked-out red beauty and she dropped the bag on the floorboard and jumped in, settling in the red leather seat with its cool chrome trim. The bag sat between her feet.

Curtis did a one-eighty and they headed down the mountain. He glanced over at the bag. “Is that full of dirty laundry, or should I be congratulating you?”

“You should be smiling from ear to ear ’cause I just paid for your vacation in Costa Rica and then some.”

“I’m liking the sound of that. You know what amazes me?”

“What?”

“These guys you play poker with don’t get robbed, all the money they have around and no security.”

She agreed. Many of the young guns of poker were so flush with cash that it had become commonplace to go into one of their houses and see it everywhere. Money was the new drug of choice.

Beth settled back, her mind preoccupied with how to handle backing out of the Oracle assignment.

They dropped quickly down past the Mormon church that stood on the side of Sunrise Mountain looking down on Vegas like a condemnation. It was her father who told her the Mormons provided the casinos with their most valuable employees, as they had long ago proven to be honest and trustworthy, a highly sought after quality in a casino.

Without warning, Curtis swerved and braked hard, the car’s headlights framing a black car that was blocking the road. “What the hell’s this?”

He brought the Vette to a skidding halt.

Two men on the far side of the black car raised their arms and extended from their hands the unmistakable glint of gun metal.

“Get down!” Curtis yelled.

He reached for the glove box, pulled out a weapon and at the same time started to back up. Bullets slammed through the windshield.

Another car pulled out of a side street behind them, its high beams flooding the Vette and blinding her when she turned to look.

The ambush was perfect. The trap doors closed at both ends. And when she looked at Curtis to see why he wasn’t doing anything she saw blood on his face.

Chapter 2

“Get out, run!” Curtis said as he fired his weapon first one way, then another.

She snapped off her seat belt, grabbed the door handle, opened the door and he pushed her out onto the road.

The firing was from guns with silencers that made little spitting sounds. She rolled over the side of the embankment, her small shoulder bag tangling around her neck as bullets kicked dirt and rocks around her.