Stacked Deck

She called the airport and made a reservation for the next flight out of Vegas that would get her to the Washington Dulles Airport in Virginia. She got a seat on the redeye.

She headed back out in traffic, turned south on Charleston heading for the freeway to McCarran International Airport.

Two hours later Beth, having learned that Curtis Sault had been taken to Sunrise Hospital and was in surgery, but expected to live, sat in a window seat as her flight took off from McCarran.

She was incredibly relieved. She didn’t want tears in her eyes and the guy sitting next to her asking if she was all right. She wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

She’d cleaned up in the ladies room inside McCarran and changed into a “What Happens in Vegas…” T-shirt and a pair of black sports pants with Las Vegas lettered across her butt in bright pink. She’d stopped at the first shop she’d come to inside the airport, having no choice but to change out of her dirty and blood-spattered clothes or she would never be allowed to board the plane. Now she looked like some kind of walking billboard, but at least she was blood-free.

The flight would get her into Dulles at six in the morning and she intended to stop somewhere for breakfast—she was starving—then go straight to Oracle headquarters and get this thing settled.

Beth tried to get a little sleep, but the catastrophe of having an acquaintance shot wound her so tightly she stayed awake during the entire flight.

She was certain that because someone was trying to kill her and she was now mixed up with a homicide, Oracle would cut her loose from the mission without consequence and she could return to Vegas to deal with this situation. Convinced tonight’s attack was connected to her search for her father’s killer, she must be on the right track now, and couldn’t afford any delays.

Allison Gracelyn was the only person Beth knew who was connected to Oracle. The organization did not advertise its existence in any way. Few knew about it at all. Fewer knew any of the people involved. Even the agents who were sent on assignments had little, if any, knowledge of other agents.

But Beth and Allison had a special bond. Both had lost parents to murder.

In Allison’s case, it was her mother, founder of the Athena Academy, where Beth had gotten her education. Allison, of all people, would understand her current situation. She was also an Athena grad and was the person who had recruited Beth.

When Beth’s father was killed she was twelve and had no other family to take her in. She became a ward of the state of Nevada. At some point she’d been given a battery of aptitude tests. The results, especially in math, brought her to the attention of a very special college prep school, Athena Academy for girls in Phoenix, Arizona. Allison was still very much involved in the school.

The academy had given Beth an education unlike anything offered in any other school in America. Besides a strong academics program she studied martial arts, learned horseback riding and analyzed war-game strategies, as well as languages and international political theory.

The school prepared her and the other girls for much more than just higher education. It prepared them to compete with men at the highest levels of whatever careers they chose.

For Beth, becoming an Oracle agent was the logical step for someone with her unique skills. As a professional card player, the legacy of her father, she played in high-stakes games all over the world.

Because of her card playing, Beth had unusual access to an entire strata of movers and shakers in the shadows of global finance. This was a big asset for Oracle and she hoped it might work in her favor now, allowing her to bow out of this mission, whatever it was, without souring the relationship.

It would be an immense loss if she had to cut her ties to Oracle, Allison and the academy, the only family she’d had since her father’s death, but Beth was too close to learning the name of her father’s killer, and nothing short of her own death would stop her from getting that information.

Chapter 3

When the plane landed, Beth headed for the nearest food kiosk. After a blueberry scone, one almost ripe banana, a bag of spicy tortilla chips and a large black coffee, she rented an Alero from Avis.

Once inside her car, she reminded herself what was at stake here, and rehearsed what she wanted to say to Allison. Other agents could be called in out of the cold to do this job. They really didn’t need her. And she had something else to do that was, in her mind of far greater significance.

She had never quit anything important, let alone the most important organization she’d ever belonged to. Its code of silence and loyalty was unmatched. It was, to be sure, a lot tighter than the crumbling mafia code of omerta, or the sieve that was the CIA.

At eight-thirty in the morning, Beth drove the Alero through the security gate to the rear of the town house that served as Oracle’s inconspicuous residential location.

The first time she’d been to Oracle’s nerve center, she’d expected some huge building appropriate for a major intelligence operation. Instead it was an unassuming town house as befitting its very low profile.

Her arrival had already been cleared. The agency didn’t like more than one at-large agent showing up at any given time. It was rare, in fact, to ever be invited here and that made this even more unusual.

Beth had never known Oracle’s leader’s identity, but she’d often wondered if Delphi was actually the code name for Allison Gracelyn. Whether or not Allison, also an employee of NSA, was Delphi she was one of the major powers in Oracle, and the one person Bethany wanted to deal with on a personal basis.

She entered the town house through the rear, her thumb print and a retina scan necessary to get in. She went into the kitchen where a woman sat at the table drinking coffee and talking on a cell phone.

Beth glanced at her, made a passing nod and headed upstairs. A young red-headed staffer told her that Allison was in a meeting and asked her to wait in Allison’s office.

Beth made her way into the office. There was a desk, a laptop, a few photos of bucolic settings on the walls, a small refrigerator in one corner, a sofa against the far wall with matching chairs and an oak coffee table.

As she waited for her former classmate, she reflected on her years at Athena Academy at the base of the White Tank Mountains near Phoenix. They were some of the best years of her life.

Everyone who attended the academy was put in a particular group. Hers was Artemis, the Huntress in mythology. She often missed the camaraderie, the competition and the fun of those years, and it brought a smile to her face thinking about all the trouble her secret, “floating” card games had gotten her in.

And those famous words from one of her instructors: “Beth, are you trying to turn this academy into a Las Vegas casino?”

Beth was lost in her memories when she heard Allison out in the hall talking to someone.

Beth took a deep breath to calm down. She didn’t want to just blurt out everything in a gush of emotion. Allison was the consummate professional and Beth wanted to keep her respect and the connection to Oracle.

Allison walked in carrying a laptop shoulder bag. She said, tongue-in-cheek, “Wow. The outfit is so—” she smiled ruefully and raised her eyebrows “—Vegas.”

For her part, Allison looked great, her brilliant brown eyes smiling as she shook Beth’s hand. She wore a tailored gray business suit, white blouse, short hair tucked neatly behind her ears, very little makeup, but the jade teardrop earrings gave the business look a feminine edge.

Allison motioned toward the sofa and matching chairs. They sat across from each other in the chairs.

Beth explained the outfit and filled Allison in on the incident in Vegas and the events leading up to it, and why, because of it, she couldn’t take the mission.

“I’m convinced the men who came after me did so on the orders of the man who runs a cheating crew. It could be the crew my father once worked for.”

Allison studied her intently for a moment, before saying, “The man you believe your father worked for when he was murdered?”

“Yes. I think he now realizes who I am and what I’m doing. I’m very close. I have to carry this through.”

Allison nodded. “I absolutely understand the urgency of your situation, but we really do need you for this operation.” She smiled slightly, and rested her hands in her lap. “I really think you’ll reconsider after you hear the details and the unusual set of circumstances surrounding this mission.”

Beth shook her head, adamant and controlled. “There has to be somebody who can sub for me. I absolutely can’t do it right now.”

“Beth, you’re not only assuming the hit team that tried to take you out is connected to the cheating crew you’ve been tracking, but you’re convinced of it. However, you have no hard evidence to prove this, and you’ve been down this road before with other crews.”

“I know. But I have a good feeling this time that I’m on the right track.”

“But still no actual proof.”

“Not yet. But I will.”

“I can see that it’s easy to fuse your own emotional vendetta with everything that happened.”

“I don’t think that’s what I’m doing,” Beth said, trying hard not to get defensive.

Allison sat back in her chair, folded her hands and tucked her legs to one side, then she sat forward again and straightened her back. All tells.

Beth knew she was in for a serious briefing.