by T C Miller
He looked down at the descending digits. “A lot of innocent people are counting on us…Anybody got any idea where he might have hidden it?”
Joanna and casino security pushed their way into the room through the departing hostages. “I have one, Colonel!”
“Let’s hear it, but be quick.”
“Question keeps popping up…Why bring the bombs to this casino? Can’t just be revenge…One bomb will waste everything in a five-mile radius. Eichner was a contractor…He do any work here?”
Bart posed the question to Joe Anthony, who had joined them from the elevator lobby. The answer came back after a quick radio exchange. “Seems that a company called EichCon did some remodeling in the lobby about a year ago…Also built some supply rooms in the basement about six months ago.”
“Can you show us? Bart replied. “My gut says it won’t be the lobby…too much traffic. Let’s hit the basement first.”
He grabbed the security director by the arm and half-dragged him toward the elevator. “Come on, Joe, we’re probably gonna need your help.”
Jake, Joanna, and the NSA agents dashed into the elevator with them and Jake pressed the button for the sub-basement.
Johansen pressed himself as far as possible into the corner of the elevator car, hung his head and stared dejectedly at the floor.
The group stared back and forth at each other and watched the lighted buttons display the downward progress. A Barry Manilow tune filled the confined space, but Bart barely heard it above the sound of blood roaring in his ears.
He leaned over toward Johansen and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, “Look, son, I don’t know what your problem is…but smoke grenades weren’t part of the plan. Maybe your mama gave you too many toys to play with when you were a kid…Don’t know and it doesn’t matter…Only gonna say this once, so listen up…Pull another stunt like you did back there and I’ll shoot you myself! Understood?”
Johansen wisely said nothing, nodded and cowered even more. The elevator crawled slowly toward the basement.
CONSORTIUM SAFE HOUSE
SACRAMENTO, CA
The Commissioner finished laying out plans for the raid on the CIA Safe House at Lake Tahoe over the video conference call. “I know this is not the typical mission…”
“None of them ever are,” Sparks, one of the team members whispered.
“Do you forget this is a two-way feed, Mister Sparks?” the Commissioner queried with an icy tone.
“No sir…sorry.”
“Your apology is accepted. Now, where was I?…The risks are obviously higher for this work…therefore, the reward will be commensurately bigger. Standard fee for this sort of operation is fifty thousand dollars. I am doubling that and it will be deposited in your equity account…Should you fail to safely return, it will be given to your beneficiary.
“Furthermore, we have decided to add a mission bonus of six hundred thousand for successful completion. That will be divided among survivors. Medical expenses will be covered, as well as paid recovery time. Any questions?”
“What about recovered items?” The question came from Steptoe, a recent addition to the team.
“We are not pirates, sir…we do not allow booty. However, if a recovered item, as you phrase it, has intelligence value, you will be rewarded. Get approval from your team leader before confiscating it. Now, unless you have something else, I have another meeting in three minutes. Goodbye.”
The screen went dark.
“Glad we didn’t have any other questions,” Chance whispered to Jim.
“Shouldn’t,” was the terse reply. “We all know our jobs…Steptoe is our weapons man, Skullcracker is the explosives expert, Trucker is in charge of transportation and Sparks runs comm.”
“What do yo do?”
“Backup for all of them…and babysit you.”
Chance bristled at the last comment. “Babysit? I can do any of the other jobs…”
“Not until you’re certified by me…So be my shadow and help when you can…or if I tell you to.”
“Yes, suh, massa…”
“And work on getting rid of that smart ass attitude…It’ll only get you in trouble,” Jim admonished him.
“Yeah, right…I’ll work on it.”
NICK BORETTI’S OFFICE
Nick Boretti sat in an overstuffed armchair in front of his desk and sipped a glass of twenty year old scotch. “Don’t know about you, but I’m getting real tired of old men telling us what to do.”
Antonio Lemonica was his boss and sat behind Boretti’s desk out of deference and habit. Tony, as only his closest confidantes referred to him, thought for a second before asking, “Guys in Chicago or guys in Europe?”
“Europe. I know we’re supposed to work with them ‘cause of our things in Macao and Hong Kong…But tell me why we shoud let them stick their greaseball noses into our thing here?”
“Asked Provencano the same thing this morning.” Guido Provencano was head of the syndicate for Nevada and lived in Las Vegas. “Alls he would say is, it is what it is…Which don’t say nothing, but you know how he is.”
“Yeah, that’s how he is…What are you gonna do?”
“Ain’t sure…What brung it up was the guys in the ceiling spotting this Eichner mook playing cards in Majestic’s upstairs lounge…Sent Toby and Craig to grab him…It don’t happen. Joe Anthony and his people got the whole friggin’ floor sealed off…Won’t say why…Somethin’ about national security or some bullshit. Then, all of a sudden, wham! Toby says one of his buddies works for Anthony…Tells him Eichner’s gone…Bam!…Right out from under their noses.”
“Guy’s gotta have connections…”
“Maybe…Got away by killing a coupla Anthony’s men…
Meaner’n a junk yard dog…Should work for us.”
“We should be so lucky, but what are you gonna do?” This time it was a rhetorical question asked with a shrug of the shoulders.
“Ain’t sure…Got every guy on the street looking for him…Don’t care what nobody in the old country says. Too many questions keep popping up about this wise guy. Maybe we’ll find him first…Get some answers.”
MAJESTIC CASINO
Scarlet numbers on the timer showed 41 minutes and 13 seconds when the doors finally slid open and the entire group tried to squeeze out of the elevator at once. They followed Joe Anthony down a hall lined with food carts, boxes and crates of kitchen produce. Stray spinach leaves poked out from one and a squashed tomato made the floor slippery. The smell of rotting vegetables was something buffet patrons would not smell.
Mary Benson waved a Geiger counter as she passed the objects. “Normal levels here,” she announced. None of them looked large enough to contain the nuclear device.
A scan of both sides of the hallway showed no irregularities until Bart reached a door marked with a yellow sign in big black letters that read Electrical Room-Authorized Personnel Only. He turned to Anthony. “Why does this door have a different lock set than the others?”
Joe shrugged his shoulders. “No idea…Let me check something.” He spoke into his radio and the answer came back in less than a minute. “Got a problem here…According to our blueprints, B117A doesn’t even exist and you’re right…not one of our locks. None of my master keys’ll fit…”
Bart interrupted, “What do you mean, doesn’t exist?”
“Just that…doesn’t show up on any of our floor plans. New supply rooms next door are exactly where they’re supposed to be. This room, on the other hand, shouldn’t be here Looks like a little was taken off of the supply rooms to make it.”
Jake knelt down and examined the area around the door.
“Door’s been opened recently…Notice the scrape marks?”
“Can you pick it?” Bart asked.
“Looks like a tough one…might be better to break in, since we’re pressed for time.”
“Are there any tools around here?” Bart directed the question to Anthony. “You know, like a pry bar
or ax… something like that?”
Two armed security guards stepped out of the elevator and Joe shouted, “Snell, get a pry bar or a tire iron…Something to open this door.”
The guard acknowledged with a wave and ran out an exit door that led to the underground parking garage.
Bart turned to Jake and Joanna. “This door may be booby-trapped…Move everybody back at least fifty feet. Jake, you got your mini-scope?”
Jake grinned and pulled the flexible tube from a side pocket of his cargo pants. “I don’t leave home without it.”
He handed it to Bart, who knelt down and pushed it under the door while swinging it from side to side. “Too dark to see much…There’s a little light coming through a vent from the room next door. Can’t see what’s inside for sure…Shapes that look like supply cabinets. Good news is it doesn’t look like any wires on the door. What do y’all think?”
“We’re running low on time,” Joanna offered. “Might be best to go ahead…”
Conversation stopped when the security guard burst through the parking garage door carrying a four-foot steel crow bar extended at arm’s length like it was made of gold. “Had this in my truck.”
“Thanks, pard,” said Bart. “Guess that settles it…We’ll prize it open. Everybody else, please move down the hall.”
Joe Anthony and the two guards herded a curious kitchen staff to what they felt was a safe distance. That left the team from Mather and the two NSA agents huddled around the door.
Bart nodded to Benson and Johansen. “Y’all can move down there with the rest if you want to…Might be safer.”
“From the short time I’ve worked with you, Colonel, I trust your judgment…so have at it.”
Bart shrugged his shoulders and inserted the bar between the door and frame. He and Jake grunted and applied as much force as they could. The door creaked, groaned and popped open a few inches. The group breathed a collective sigh of relief at the absence of an explosion.
Bart ran the beam from his flashlight around the door frame. He found nothing and directed the light into the room. There were no obvious trip wires or explosive devices showing. The light switch showed no obvious signs of tampering, so he pushed the door open all the way.
A flip of the switch brought fluorescent lights slowly to life and revealed a room about the size of a large bathroom. Shelves along one wall held survival food packs and boxes of ammunition, as well as camping gear. Five-gallon bottles of drinking water lined the other wall. Two rifles and a shotgun were propped in the far corner in front of a large utility cabinet. Its doors were opened enough to reveal an empty pistol case. A hiking pack leaned against the wall, just inside the door.
Jake surveyed the room, stepped back and looked at Bart. “I don’t get it, sir…Where’s the bomb?”
Bart rubbed the back of his neck. “No idea…Looks like nothing more than escape gear…May have left them here to pick up later.”
“Sure put a lot of thought and planning into this,” Joanna observed. “Somebody trained him well.”
Jake carefully opened the cabinet doors. The shelves held more supplies, including boxes of ammunition, one of which was empty.
They began searching for any clues to where Eichner might be headed.
Bart let out an exasperated sigh after a few minutes. “Stop…that’s enough…Let’s step back…Put our heads together and try to figure out what he did with the bombs.”
They stood in the cramped storeroom staring at each other until Joanna face-palmed herself. “Wait! He’d want the bomb to be up higher in elevation, wouldn’t he? You know, for maximum blast effect. How could he sneak it up higher in the building without raising suspicion or having it discovered during a search?”
Jake jumped in, “I know where you’re headed with that…She reminded me of an incident years ago…Guy threatened to blow up a casino if the owner didn’t pay. Other casino owners were afraid there’d be future extortion attempts…Offered to help cover any damages if he told the bad guy to go to hell …”
Bart broke in with an exasperated sigh, “Look, son…hate to cut this short, but we’re on a timer…How ‘bout the Reader’s Digest version?”
Jake frowned. “Long story short…he refused to pay. They cleared the building and waited…Bomb blew out the entire fifth floor.”
“Damn, son!” Bart’s jaw dropped. “Blew it out?”
Benson spoke up, “I remember seeing it on the evening news…Rest of the hotel was fine, but that middle floor was totally gone. You could see mountains on the other side of the lake right through the building…Nothing left but concrete pillars.”
“Wait, you’re telling me the building didn’t collapse?” asked Johansen. “A little hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it,” she replied. “Of course, they built them a lot stronger back then…concrete pillars stood in place.”
“Guess I missed that one,” Bart commented. “Overseas at the time…What’s the connection?”
“Bad guy got it past security by disguising it as an ordinary copy machine,” Jake answered.
Bart yelled down the hall to the director of security, “Hey, Joe, y’all had any large deliveries in the past few days?…Be at least the size of a copy machine or bigger.”
“Let me see.” There was a pause. “Hang on a second, they’re checking the delivery logs.”
It took less than a minute for the security control center to come back with an answer. “Besides the usual food and drink deliveries, there was some lighting and sound gear that came in this morning…For a concert next weekend…although, that soes seems a little early. Could that be it?”
“Maybe…Where’s the theater?”
“Top floor.”
“Then that could be it. Joe, would you be kind enough to show us the way?”
“No problem, Colonel…Follow me.”
They headed toward the elevator with Anthony and his men in tow. The elevator seemed even slower as it crawled upward and the music seemed more oppressive. The timer displayed 27 minutes and 19 seconds with a ruby red glow.
The music changed to a light rock version of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild.” Joe Anthony was subconsciously mouthing the words, “Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space…”
They all stared at him.
He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Hope it doesn’t happen here…”
After what seemed like ages, the gentle ting of a bell announced their arrival at the fourteenth floor.
CIA SAFE HOUSE AT SOUTH SHORE LODGE
“Man, I can’t believe the missions you went on during the Cold War,” exclaimed Toby. “Lot more exciting than now.”
“I suppose it would look that way to someone who’s just starting their career.” Nora realized that her son would have been about his age, if not for the fiery accident that took him. Her heart ached and she continued to avoid tears. “We felt like we were doing our jobs the best we could, even if there were times when nobody seemed to have a clue…especially our bosses.”
“That’s one thing that hasn’t changed,” Jack interjected. He stumbled over his words. “What I meant to say…What I meant was…it’s still a confusing world, even today. Hard to know who our friends are…”
Ken saved the young man from further embarrassment. “What our young colleague is trying to say is there’s a certain amount of ambiguity at the upper echelons. Nobody’s sure where they stand with the guys at Langley…Who, in turn, aren’t sure where they stand with the career bureaucrats on Capitol Hill.”
“You’re right…nothing’s changed.” Nora chuckled. “About the only thing any of us can do is run as fast as we can to keep the wheel turning.”
“Speaking of…About time for Jack and Toby to make their rounds of the perimeter. We have trip wires and sensors, but I still think the human element is the best guard…Gentlemen, we’ll see you back in twenty minutes. Denny and I’ll do the dishes.”
The agents would have preferred t
o stay and listen to more of Nora’s stories, but duty called. They checked their weapons and headed for the door. Denny excused himself to go to the bathroom and Ken began clearing the table. She joined him in the kitchen where he was scraping plates into a trash bin.
“Gosh, they make me feel so old!” She smiled.
“Try being around them twenty-four seven,” he replied. “Glad I only have three years till retirement. Still, they’re a good crew and I appreciate their enthusiasm…most of the time.”
She spoke softly, “Hope they never have to go through what we did. I pray the end of the Cold War has brought us some lasting semblance of peace.”
“Me too…Problem is there are still people out there who want to change the world order to their advantage.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she shot back. “I’m too much of a pragmatist to think our country can ever let its guard down…even for a second. You and I both know it can blow up in our collective faces any time…anywhere.”
“Isn’t that the truth…Now, do you want to wash or dry?” He extended a sponge in one hand and a dish towel in the other.
He looked over her shoulder at a red light mounted over the door that was blinking. “Problem in the office. Strange, though…I thought everybody we expected had already clocked in…Better go check.”
He patted the MAC-10 under his arm as he started to the door. “Might want to wait in the cave.”
Nora detected an undercurrent of urgency in his outwardly calm manner. She dropped the dish towel on the counter and headed for the secret passage off the living room. Being cautious had saved her life many times in the past…
***
CHAPTER 17
MAJESTIC CASINO THEATER
A bewildered stagehand watched as the ragtag group of law enforcement people ran across the stage at him, led by a tall lanky guy who showed by his stride and demeanor he was in charge.
“Show us the shipment that came in this morning,” Bart demanded.
The theater employee stared at Bart. Who the hell does he think he is, barking orders at me? He started to give him a piece of his mind when he saw Joe Anthony. “Right over there, sir!”
