24 Declassified: Vanishing Point 2d-5

by Marc A. Cerasini

  Bix smirked. Carlos faced the American. “You have fulfilled your part of the bargain.”

  A Cuban stepped forward, opened a leather attaché case. It was stuffed with cash. Stella’s eyes narrowed when she saw the money. She licked her lips.

  “Five million dollars,” Carlos said. “You’ve already received the shipment of cocaine. Count the cash if you wish.”

  Bix grinned. “I trust you, amigo.” He reached out, closed the case himself. Roman Vine took it from the Cuban.

  “What do you want me to do with this here federale?” Bix asked, his booted foot prodding Curtis’s kidney.

  “Throw him in one of the trucks. He killed two of my men, he can die with the others in the first blast.”

  While a pair of Cubans grabbed Curtis under the arms and dragged him to one of the trucks, Carlos faced Bix.

  “We have only one problem now,” he said. “One of the men this American agent killed was the brother of a waiter at the Babylon. He was to take his brother’s place this night, in order to plant the final bomb in the banquet hall.”

  Bix frowned. “Spot of bad luck there, eh, amigo?” He rubbed his chin. “Look, I can provide you with a driver or two — for a price. But I can’t get you close to the VIPs, not without advance planning. I reckon nobody can. Not now…”

  “I can.”

  Carlos and Roland turned to face Stella Hawk. Head cocked, hands on her hips, she nodded. “Yeah, you heard right. I can get one or two of you in, anyway. I’m a performer at Risque, which is inside the Babylon, and my roommate is a waitress at tonight’s shindig. I’ll get you past security, or around it.”

  Pizarro Rojas, who’d only been listening up to now, stepped forward. “How much is the ser vices of this… this puta descarada going to cost?”

  The insult rolled off her back. “Five hundred thousand dollars,” Stella replied, extending her hand, palm up. “Payable right now.”

  Pizarro glanced at his brother. “Pay her.”

  Bix studied the man. For a guy who’d been forced to cough up an extra half million dollars, Pizarro Rojas seemed pretty calm. His brother Balboa didn’t look nearly so happy. Sour faced, he rummaged through the scuffed and dirty canvas bag that he’d carried across the border, came up with a stack of thousand-dollar bills.

  “You better deliver what we’ve paid for, or you will not leave the hotel alive,” he grunted as he handed her the money.

  Stella flashed him a smile. “Don’t worry, Pedro. Satisfaction’s guaranteed.” She climbed into her car, stashed the money in a secret compartment behind the dash.

  Finally, Pizarro Rojas moved toward Hugo Bix, until the two men stood toe to toe. Rojas, a head shorter than the American, looked up to meet his eye.

  “In a few minutes we will drive away from here in these trucks,” Rojas said. “But I will always remember the ser vice you and your men provided for me, for my family. In times of trouble, when the other gangs turned on us, you remained loyal.” Pizarro touched his head. “A Rojas never forgets his friends, as you shall soon discover.”

  Turning his back on Bix, he headed back to the trucks. On the way, he took Stella’s arm, pushed her toward the first vehicle. Despite the rough handling, Stella smirked. Heels clicking, she obediently followed her new, high-paying boss.

  “Adios, amigo,” Bix called as he walked to his office. “And good luck…”

  By the time Bix reached his cluttered desk upstairs, the trucks were rolling out of the garage. Carlos Boca stood at the door, directing the deployment. He spaced each departure a few minutes apart — a wise move, Bix realized. It would look odd if six identical Sunflower Gardens Florist trucks rolled out of a garage nowhere near the location of the real shop on the other side of town.

  Watching the last of the trucks roll on to their target, Bix lifted his phone, pressed a button.

  Downstairs, Roman Vine answered the phone on the wall. “Yeah, boss.”

  “Time to call the Wildman. Tell them it’s a go.”

  Bix slumped down in the battered office chair and propped his feet on the desk. While the Rojas boys were having their fun, Hugo Bix had been planning a private party of his own. He’d just passed the order along to the out-of-towner gunmen Roman Vine hired from the El Paso mob. While the authorities’ attention was diverted to the big blowout at the Babylon, Bix was going to light his own kind of fire at the Cha-Cha Lounge, and Jaycee Jager and his crew were going to burn.

  9. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 P.M. AND 9 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME

  8:05:11 P.M. PDT Babylon Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

  Jong Lee answered the door to his own suite. Lev Cohen blinked in surprise, expecting the woman Yizi to greet him. The Asian man was dressed casually and appeared relaxed, so Palmer’s Chief of Staff recovered quickly. Lev greeted the man, but did not extend his hand. Nor did Jong Lee offer his.

  Pale under his red-brown beard, Lev shifted uncomfortably. Adjusting, then re-adjusting his tie. He didn’t like this part of the job, but he was well aware that this was part of his job, the sordid under-the table dealings that made the machine of politics run.

  At least, after years of struggling, he’d latched on to a star that was going to take him all the way to the top. He’d help David Palmer get elected President of the United States, then Lev Cohen would be a name. After a successful stint in the White House, he’d launch his own consulting firm, maybe do a little lobbying on the side, or even a job with big media.

  Lev had made the decision long ago to play along, do what was necessary to succeed — even if it meant playing the bag man and handling dirty money. Best to just get it over with as quickly as possible. Unlike the previous chief of staff, Cohen had survived two campaigns with Senator Palmer not only because he was very good at his job, but also because he understood something his predecessor did not — it was Sherry Palmer who called the shots with David Palmer’s political career, not the Senator.

  Oh, sure, when Senator Palmer spoke, Lev nodded politely, always took the man’s suggestions under serious consideration. But he always did what Sherry wanted, when she wanted it done. That’s what made Lev a survivor.

  “If you will please be seated, Mr. Cohen.”

  “I really don’t have time…”

  Jong Lee took his arm, guided Lev to the suite’s living room. Though fresh desert air filled the suite, the curtains were drawn on the balcony. The spacious room was lit by a single lamp. A leather case sat, lid open, in the middle of the glass coffee table. Its interior was filled with neat stacks of thousand dollar bills. Cohen slumped down in a straight backed chair. Behind him the curtains stirred with the breeze.

  “It is all there, Mr. Cohen,” Jong Lee said, sitting in an armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table. “I insist you count it.”

  “That’s really not necessary, Mr. Lee—”

  “Indulge me,” Lee said, crossing his legs.

  Lev shrugged. “All right, if you insist.”

  He reached for a stack of bills, but his hand never touched the paper. Instead, a sudden burst of wind tickled his neck — then his mind exploded with black jets of agony as sharp blades plunged into his throat. As a red haze clouded his vision, Lev tried to cry out but no sound could possibly emerge from the ravaged larynx. He tried to raise his hands to clutch at his neck, but the tendons in his shoulders had been pierced or severed, his arms paralyzed. Finally, he tried to stand, but his assassin pressed the three-pronged blades farther downward, until they sunk deeper into his abdomen, to pierce arteries, scrape bones. Finally his lungs were punctured and collapsed like deflated balloons. Mouth open, eyes wide but unseeing, Lev Cohen’s world ended.

  When she was sure Palmer’s man was dead, Yizi yanked the twin sai out of his shoulders, stared at the blood staining the long silver prongs. Standing behind the corpse, the woman’s eyes narrowed and she trembled like a cold kitten.

  Yizi blinked, snapping out of her short trance. Slowly she lifted her chin. She wi
ped the bloody sai on the dead man’s clothing, slipped them into her belt. Unlike traditional sai, which are not sharpened, the prongs of uneven length, Yizi’s weapons had three twelve-inch prongs, each as sharp and the point of a diamond.

  “You are calm now?” he asked in Chinese, using the metaphor.

  “Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to indulge myself.”

  Jong nodded once. “From now on you must kill with detached precision, quickly and without hesitation. Then move on to the next target. There will be nothing elegant about this operation. This is not wushu, it is slaughter.”

  “I understand.”

  8:17:48 P.M. PDT Tiki Room The Cha-Cha Lounge, Las Vegas

  Jack’s phone buzzed. “Jaycee.”

  “It’s Morris. Heard from our girl in Los Angeles, Little Jamey…”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “Our friend Tony, out at Area 51, he uncovered the traitor. A fellow named Dr. Steven Sable.”

  “What’s the proof?”

  Morris chuckled. “Tony picked his pocket, stole the man’s cell phone and downloaded its contents. What a bunch of secret agents we are. Pickpockets, gambling cheats, loan sharks, torturers—“

  “Enough editorializing, Morris. I need real information.” Jack’s tone was icy.

  “Jamey traced the stored phone numbers,” a contrite Morris replied. “Turns out that in the past six months, our distinguished researcher made seventy-three calls to one Hugo Bix. The last call Dr. Sable made today, just before Tony grabbed his phone, was traced to a number at Bix Automotive.”

  “Have you alerted Tony?”

  “We sent him the message. Don’t know if he’s retrieved it yet. His movements are carefully monitored at Groom Lake, so he isn’t always available to us…”

  Jack checked his wristwatch. “What about Curtis?”

  “Curtis hasn’t reported in yet. He’s ordered radio silence so I’m not supposed to contact him.” Morris paused. “Can’t say I’m worried yet, but I will be if I don’t here from Mr. Manning soon.”

  “Patch Curtis through to this phone as soon as he calls in,” Bauer commanded.

  Jack ended the call, tucked the cell into the pocket of his leather jacket. Stretching his legs, Jack glanced again at his watch. He still had a turncoat at his casino. Someone had murdered the Midnight Cowboy Max Farrow, the guy with the Area 51 technology. And that same someone likely murdered the Cha-Cha Lounge’s security guard Ray Perry too.

  Though he knew it was best to wait until Bix made the first move before he took action against the traitor in his midst, Jack also realized there were several precautions he could take. He didn’t want to be surprised by a premature move on the turncoat’s part.

  One of those precautions involved returning to the subbasement storeroom where Morris had found Ray Perry’s corpse. For a long time Jack wondered why the killer had stashed the body there. Jack believed he’d finally solved that riddle. If he was right, then it was time to set a little booby trap, a simple snare that would help Jack unmask the traitor before more damage was done…

  8:21:06 P.M. PDT Babylon Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

  Jong Lee had observed the execution, and the joy Yizi took from the act, with impassive detachment. Legs crossed, chin resting on his hand, he assessed the woman’s performance while he waited for her to finish the task of moving Lev Cohen’s corpse.

  When Yizi appeared behind the man, the sharp sai in her hands, the demure servant who bowed obsequiously at every man, who subserviently anticipated every wish, was gone, the true Yizi revealed.

  Small and lean, with her raven-black tresses pulled back into a bun. Her white skin contrasted with the form-fitting black jumpsuit that hugged her lithe body from neck to toe. Made from a super-elastic microfiber, the suit was snug enough to reveal the woman’s hip bones under her taut flesh. Indeed, Jong Lee could count the woman’s ribs. Her pale flesh and skeletal appearance, coupled with the way she clutched her sai — a weapon that resembled the pitchfork so common in colorful depictions of the Western devil — were the reasons Jong Lee had assigned her with the code name “Reaper.”

  Yizi was one of the unintended consequences of the People’s Republic of China’s misguided effort to control its burgeoning population. Another, far more dire consequence, was the wholesale abortion of generations of female babies. Now, over two decades after the failed policies were initiated, China was paying the price — a large majority of the nation’s male population would never have a Chinese wife because of the gender imbalance.

  But not all of the female babies proved useless. In time the State established a secret bureau inside the PLA. This unit was charged with the recruitment and training of young girls from a very early age. Those females who exhibited promise were selected for “special combat reeducation,” a lifetime of training which included combat tactics, espionage tradecraft, techniques of terrorism, and modes of assassination. Only girls who passed dozens of rigorous intelligence and physical screening were accepted, and they could be dropped from the program at any time. Rejection meant instant execution, for the females were considered expendable. During their indoctrination and training, every aspect of these women’s lives was regulated, their bodies and minds completely controlled.

  Yizi had begun her training at the age of six. Now she was twenty-two, a woman, though Jong Lee knew that in almost no sense of the word was Yizi a true woman. Like her sisters in the “special program,” Yizi’s menstrual cycle had been curtailed — a consequence of the rigorous training, as well as the hormones and steroids she’d been injected with.

  It did not matter in the end. Yizi possessed all the charms of a woman, and could use them to seduce and corrupt a man if so ordered. Though Yizi was a skilled espionage agent, Jong learned she was a superb assassin — efficient, cool under pressure, and pathologically addicted to her vocation.

  Yizi appeared at his side. “It is done.” It was true, Where Lev Cohen died, there was only blood.

  Jong Lee nodded, then spoke. “You know the plan. Go back to the dry cleaners. Captain Hsu is awaiting your instructions. Use the phrase you have memorized. I will meet you at the airport at the appointed time…”

  Jong watched as Yizi slipped a raincoat over her ebony jumpsuit, draped the purse over her shoulder and left the suite without a backward glance.

  With a contented sigh, Jong Lee settled deeper into his chair and pondered the possibilities of success or failure in the next phase of his operation. Jong knew he was in control of Yizi and of his commandos. They would behave within the bounds of their training and his expectations. What Lee could not control were the Rojas brothers.

  Jong Lee had helped facilitate the attack on the Pan Latin Anti-Drug Conference because it fit in with his own plans. The Rojas desired revenge against America, and against the law enforcement agencies that had targeted his family, interfered with their schemes and murdered Francesco Rojas, the youngest son in the family.

  All Jong Lee wanted was a diversion — one so dramatic and violent that it would keep the American authorities too busy to figure out Lee’s real goal, until it was too late to stop him.

  In a few minutes, Jong Lee would leave this place, never to return. But before he fled the conflagration to come, he had to make one final phone call to set the last wheels of his elaborate plan in motion.

  Glancing at his watch, Lee lifted the receiver and dialed the secret cell phone number of the traitor he controlled, a member of the research contingent inside of Groom Lake Air Force Base.

  8:38:13 P.M. PDT Nebuchadnezzar Ballroom Babylon Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

  The massive, three-story tiered ballroom was bathed in radiant light. The chamber’s golden glow was rivaled only by the glittering array of guests, a mingling of international political figures, media barons, celebrities, literati, law enforcement officials, wealthy philanthropists and social activists.

  The Babylon Hotel was built to resemble a Middle Eastern ziggurat — a c
ircular tower ringed by a sloping ramp that descended from the rooftop ballroom all the way down to the atrium on the third floor. The ramp contained the hotel’s famed hanging gardens— an amazing array of ecological-systems made up of thousands of trees, ferns, plants and flowers from all over the world. The gardens were separated by glass walls. Some of the gardens were open to the desert air. Others were enclosed in glass and climate-controlled.

  The elegant décor in the ballroom repeated the ziggurat motif, with swirling ramps instead of staircases leading up to tiered dining areas and bars that overlooked the main ballroom far below. Crystal chandeliers in circular swirls dangled from a high roof that loomed a hundred feet over the revelers’ heads. Most of the walls were made of glass — tall windows with striking views of the Las Vegas Strip.

  Sherry Palmer watched her husband near one of those massive windows. Looking distinguished in his evening clothes, the Senator from Maryland was huddled with the ambassador from Nicaragua, and a military man from Peru, along with their jewel-bedecked wives. He must have been charming them, because the men were laughing, the woman gazing up at him with rapt attention.

  She noted that her husband’s mood had improved considerably, most likely because David was in his element now. As much as he hated impromptu speechmaking, David Palmer loved to be around people. He seemed to feed off their energy, and he took a genuine interest in those he met. David was able to instantly connect with someone on a person-to-person level. Even when he spoke to a crowd, many people who answered Lev’s questions in focus groups conducted later all said the same thing — David Palmer seemed to be talking directly to them, that they felt the same connection with him as he felt for them.

  Whether his was a skill learned early in life or a trait embedded in his DNA, Sherry didn’t know. She only knew that David’s affability was an invaluable campaign tool that, if harnessed properly, would carry him all the way to the Oval Office.

  Sherry did not share her husband’s considerable people skills. She was a good manager — cool under pressure, efficient, detail-oriented. She possessed plenty of business savvy and a political horse-sense, too. Sherry was adept at handling people, at manipulating them into giving her what she needed. But she could never win the loyalty, the respect, or the genuine love and friendship accorded her husband. David didn’t manage people, he seduced them, and under the spell of his undeniable charisma, they willingly followed his lead.