“You know,” the Dutchman shrugged, “for two high-end gamers, you two are not very street smart, are you?” He then turned toward the big man on the couch and said, “Herr Bakker, scheit hem, als je wilt.”
“Say, what?” Ronald frowned.
“Herr Bakker is Dutch, as I am, and I told him to shoot you when he is ready.”
Ronald sat up and watched the bearded man lay the Daily Racing Form aside, stand, and pull a small automatic pistol from his waistband. He then produced a silencer from his pocket and screwed it onto the barrel, smiling the entire time.
“More threats?” Ronald scoffed as he sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. The bearded man stepped across the room with the supple stride of a large cat. When he reached Ronald, he lowered the automatic and shot him in the foot without a second thought. With the noise suppressor attached, the sound from the small pistol was little more than a soft “Phutt!”
“Ah!” Ronald screamed as he leaped out of his chair, looked down, and saw a small, round hole in the top of his instep. “Ah, Ah!” Ronald repeated as he jumped around in front of Van Gries’s desk on one leg, screaming in pain and bleeding.
“I’ll bet that hurts,” Van Gries commented in a pleasant voice. “Fortunately for you, Herr Bakker is carrying his small-caliber pistol today. Were he carrying his 9-millimeter handgun, you would be missing part of your foot about now. Can I now assume you got the message? Or does the lesson need repeating?”
“You son of a bitch! You son of a bitch!” Ronald screamed as he hopped around in front of his chair in a small circle.
Van Gries shrugged, and motioned to the bearded man again. “Herr Bakker, once more if you please.”
Ronald’s eyes went wide as Bakker pointed his pistol at his good foot. Somehow, Ronald managed to levitate himself onto the chair as the man fired two more shots, “Phutt, Phutt!” They missed his foot and embedded themselves harmlessly in the carpet.
Van Gries turned toward Jimmy and asked, “Do you need a lesson as well?”
“No! No, I get the point,” Jimmy quickly answered as he drew his feet under his chair.
“Excellent!” Van Gries smiled as he bent down, opened his bottom desk drawer, and pulled out a two-inch wide roll of silver duct tape. “Here, this should do the trick,” he said as he tossed the roll to Jimmy. “Wrap some of this around your partner’s foot a dozen times or so, Mr. Talmadge.”
“Duct tape…? Around his foot?” Jimmy asked.
“It is one of the most amazing inventions of the twentieth century, and I do not want your friend bleeding all over our casino. But if you have a better suggestion?”
“Are you crazy?” Ronald complained loudly. “I need a doctor… I…”
“If you do not shut up, Mister Bakker will tape your big mouth shut and drag you out to the loading dock, where I will tell him to shoot you a few more times, in places much more painful than your foot. It is only a short distance from there to our boat in the marina.”
Jimmy’s mouth fell open as he stared across the desk at Van Gries.
“The tape, Mr. Talmadge,” the Dutchman said as he pointed down at Ronald’s foot. “Do as I told you and then get out of Atlantic City, both of you.”
“What about our money?” Jimmy dared ask as he pointed to the stack of chips on Van Gries’s desk. “That’s ours.”
“It was yours; now it is mine,” Van Gries answered with a pleasant smile. “And if I ever see you two in my casino again, this little lesson will be nothing.”
The two mammoth security guards shoved Jimmy and Ronald through the door and into the corridor. Jimmy had Ronald’s arm draped over his shoulder as they hobbled away toward the casino as if they were running in a three-legged sack race. When they reached the main casino floor, one of the guards pointed to the door to the Self Park ramp further up on the right and said, “Go out that way, and keep going. Mr. Van Gries don’t want no blood on his carpet, not unless he tells us to put it there.”
Randy Benson sat up in his chair and looked even more intently at his computer screen when the camera showed the door to Martijn Van Gries’s office swing open and the two Geeks go stumbling back out. One was limping badly, while the other provided support, being pushed and shoved along by two uniformed casino security guards. When they reached the main casino floor, the guards turned around and headed back to Martijn Van Gries’s office. No sooner were they were out of sight than “Ace” Randall, Joe “The Batman” Hendrix, and a tall blonde woman emerged from the crowd and helped the two blackjack players toward the parking garage door.
“Theo, get your men down there and stop those two,” Benson ordered.
The Dutchman turned and glared at him, irritated by the American’s order. “Are you coming too?” Theo asked. “Or are you staying here, above the fray again?”
“I don’t want them to know I’m here, not yet; there’s too much at risk. Now get out there, before they get away. We need to find out where Burke is.”
Theo slowly rose with a barely-disguised expression of disgust, and motioned for MacGregor to come along. The two mercs drew their automatic pistols and racked a round in the chamber. For an angry second, Theo considered using it on the arrogant American; but he finally turned and headed for the door.
Dorothy put her shoulder under Ronald’s arm. With Jimmy on the other side, they quickly hustled Ronald out the door and into the parking garage.
“Get them in the car and wait ’30.’” Ace told The Batman and he flipped him the car keys. “If I’m not out by then, take off and I’ll meet you at the boat.”
“Roger that,” The Batman immediately replied as he headed out the door behind Dorothy. No questions passed between them, and no answers were required.
Ace followed them to the parking garage door, turned around, and scanned the hallways and aisles around him. He was about to follow them out, when two men ran out of the service corridor door and headed toward him. Ace turned and faced them, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. To the uneducated, it might appear to be a relaxed, nonthreatening posture, but Ace had his weight carefully balanced on the balls of both feet, with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, and feet ready to explode into a half-dozen different martial arts moves should the situation arise. He also had a 9-millimeter Glock tucked in the rear waistband of his slacks, and a six-inch survival knife up his sleeve. As for the two men running at him? Like a heat-seeking missile, he tracked them every step of the way as they approached.
Fortunately for everyone involved, the two men stopped when they were still six feet away and carefully spaced themselves out to each side of him. He had done this before, and it appeared they had, too, showing the same athletic strides, confident body language, and wary expressions that he and his men had. They were pros, and he realized he could be looking into a mirror.
“Is there some reason why you are blocking the door?” the older of the two men asked in accented English.
“Is there some reason why you’re in a hurry to get through?” Ace replied.
They stood appraising each other for a moment longer. All three men had closely cropped, tactical beards, which somewhat obscured their appearances, but the accent? At first, it sounded like German, but it was a touch harder around the edges, more likely Dutch, he thought. That was when he realized he was talking to the man who got out of the limo this morning and shook hands with Martijn Van Gries. It was his brother Theo. Like Bob Burke, Ace knew he had met the man before. Where and when, he couldn’t quite remember, but he had an image of him in dusty tribal clothing, scuffed boots, and carrying a Dutch-issue, Diemaco C8 assault rifle, which had been “tricked up” with a long-range sniper scope.
“I think I know you, don’t I?” Ace finally asked, continuing to eye him carefully.
“Yes, somewhere, a few years ago. You are Delta, aren’t you?”
“Was,” Ace lied. “Now, I’m just another wandering, out-of-work Army veteran. And you’re Dutch, wi
th the Royal Dutch Marines aren’t you? Where was it? Jalalabad? Or Khost?”
“God only knows,” the other man answered. “You are Randall, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and you are…”
“Van Gries, Theo, and you are correct; I am late of the Korps of Mariniers.”
“A couple of out-of-work guns for hire? Is that what we’re becoming?”
“I believe I do remember now. But it wasn’t Jalalabad or Khost, it was in a base camp up in Nuristan Province, up in the mountains near the Pakistani border. Some of my men and I were seconded to an ad hoc NATO field force. You had a small squad of men, perhaps six or eight, and there was a major in charge. You called him De Geest, the Spirit?” Theo asked, as he finally understood. “His name was Burke, wasn’t it?”
Ace smiled, surprised Van Gries would know the name, but he didn’t answer.
“Yes, a very interesting fellow. Is he here with you?”
“The major? No, no, he got out two or three years ago, and I’m not sure where he is now,” Ace told him. “You said your name’s ‘Van Gries?’ Didn’t I see that on some of the casino sales material? Is this the family business, perhaps?”
“No, no,” Van Gries chuckled as he looked around the gaudy casino. “That is my older brother, Martijn. I believe he is the bookkeeper here. He needed some help with a small security issue, so I brought MacGregor here and a few of my other associates to help him out. So, tell me about those two card counters your people just hustled out the door; what was that all about?”
“Oh, they’re just a couple of kids we met at Harrah’s down in North Carolina. They have a system for blackjack, and they’re pretty damned good at it. Me and my friends bankrolled them for a few weekend trips to the casinos in the nearby states. They do their thing, and we provide them with some security. That’s all.”
“You are not running them?”
“No, but why’s that any of your business?”
Theo shrugged. “Because it would put you in a position you would not want to be in.”
“I wouldn’t? Ace asked, sounding surprised.
“No, and judging from the way one of your blackjack players was limping, it does not appear that your security accomplished very much tonight, did it?”
“Every job has its occupational hazards. I didn’t get a chance to talk to them, so I’m not sure what happened. I hope it wasn’t you or your people, though.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because, that would put you in a position I don’t believe you’d want to be in.”
“Perhaps we shall have the opportunity to see who is correct,” Theo said as he turned away. He looked back over his shoulder and added, “But I suggest you do not come back here unless we both care to find out.”
Ace walked out the doors and through the darkest parts of the parking garage. The car was gone, as he expected, so he set off jogging downhill. He ran fast enough to get him where he wanted to go, but slow enough to look as if he was merely out for the exercise, not running away from something. The Enchantress was moored less than two thirds of a mile south of the Bimini Bay directly across the harbor, but the shortest combination of roads that would get him there was four times that distance, taking him in a long loop to the far end of the marina. However, as he expected, by the time he got to the bottom of the casino access road, he saw Dorothy sitting in the rental car waiting for him. She flashed her headlights and he quickly jogged the rest of the way over and got in.
“What took you so long?” she asked, obviously concerned. “Problems?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Is Ronald okay?”
“Yeah, but not very happy,” she told him. “Some big Dutch guy shot him in the foot with a small-caliber handgun, maybe it was a .22, or even a .32. The bullet went through-and-through, but I’m sure there’s some broken bones in there. The Batman’s running him to the hospital for x-rays.”
“Yeah, by the time this thing’s over, we’re gonna have some serious conversations with those people.”
Theo Van Gries walked into his brother’s office with Reggie MacGregor tagging behind. The Scot flopped on the couch, while Theo took a seat on his brother’s desk. Benson was still there, watching the security feeds on the computer as he had been.
“His name is Randall,” Theo said. “I remember him from the mountains in Afghanistan. I remember Burke too. They are good, very good.”
“As good as you and your men?” Martijn asked him.
Theo’s head whipped around and he turned his angry glare on Martijn. “That is a question that only dead men can answer. When you told me your friend Carbonari had a problem with an American soldier, a major named Burke, I did not make the connection and place the name with the face. I also did not know he was bringing his other men with him.” He looked down at Benson and asked, “How many Deltas did he bring with him, Captain?”
“I have no idea,” Benson answered. “So far, I’ve only seen three of them on the videos. I doubt there’s much more than that.”
“You doubt it, but you don’t really know, do you?” Theo nodded, thinking over the worsening situation and becoming increasingly unhappy. Finally, he turned toward Bakker and said, “We must rethink our tactical plan, Lucas, the observation points, shifts, weapons, all of that.” Finally, he looked down at his brother and told him. “I need to bring in more men, Martijn, and to do that, I need more money. The risks just increased exponentially.”
“Donatello will never agree,” his younger brother answered.
Theo leaned in even closer and said, “Perhaps you can whisper sweet nothings in his ear tonight, and talk him into it.”
“You don’t understand. He’ll tell me to use the men they sent down here from Brooklyn. There are a half-dozen of them. Can’t you use them?”
“No, you’ll just have to try a little ‘harder,’ if you get my meaning, brother.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Well, that didn’t work out too well,” Bob said as the group gathered around the big boat’s central lounge. It was 1:30 in the morning. Chester and Lonzo had just returned from playing janitor all night. Ace and Dorothy were back from the Bimini Bay. The Batman and Bulldog were still at the hospital with Ronald, while Koz kept watch up on the flying bridge with binoculars and an automatic rifle. Patsy hung all over Jimmy, as usual, happy he wasn’t the one who got hurt, while Ernie Travers went around dispensing fresh beers.
“What was it they taught you at West Point?” Ace asked. “The best plan only lasts until the first shot is fired.”
“Helmuth von Moltke,” Bob answered, immediately recognizing the quotation. “But I don’t think the old field marshal was referring to the top of Ronald’s foot.”
“By the way, I think I met one of von Moltke’s great-grandsons tonight, and you’re not gonna like it. You remember that op we ran in Nuristan Province up near the Pakistani border three, maybe five years ago?”
“I remember those goddamn mountains,” Chester chimed in.
“And a lot of snow and ice,” Lonzo agreed.
“And do you remember that NATO contingent we worked with for a couple of days when we swept that valley?”
Bob frowned as he tried to remember. “Wasn’t it a mixed unit of British SAS and some German Kommando Specialkrafte, the KSK, as I recall.”
“You’ve almost got it, and there were some Dutch…” Ace led him on.
“Was that Martijn Van Gries’s brother?” Bob exclaimed. “He told me his brother was in the Royal Dutch Marines, the Black Devils, but I never made the connection.”
“I remember those guys,” Koz agreed. “They were pretty damned squared away.”
“Theo Van Gries,” Bob confirmed. “Tall, quiet, and dead eyes, like a shark.”
“No overweight Gumbahs from Brooklyn with .38-caliber police specials?” Ernie asked glumly. “I think Carbonari just ratcheted up the opposition again.”
“The guy who shot Ronald in the foot was Dutch,” Jimmy joi
ned in. “He and Martijn Van Gries even talked to each other in Dutch. His name was Bakker.”
“Like the rest of you, I’d like nothing more than to kick their butts for what they did to Vinnie,” Linda finally spoke up. “After all, that’s what we came here for, to bring down Donatello Carbonari; but it sounds like he brought in a half-dozen extras from The Godfather, plus the Dutch Foreign Legion. There comes a point when we might want to reconsider what we’re doing here before things go from bad to worse.”
“Point taken,” Bob reluctantly admitted.
“But things aren’t going from bad to worse!” Jimmy stood up and began pacing nervously around the room, insisting on being heard over all the “adult” chatter. “Ronald and I learned a lot in there, a lot more than you think. Sure, he got shot in the foot, but it’s not like his foot is the most important part of a gamer’s anatomy.”
“Okay, what did you learn?” Bob asked.
“Well, first, they took us to Van Gries’s office, not to the Security Office or ‘Risk Management,’ like we thought they would. There were some beefy guys in blue blazers who dragged us down there, but there were no black guys like that Shaka Corliss you described, or big blond football players, just three or four military types.”
Bob looked at Ernie Travers and shrugged. “Maybe they did get rid of him.”
“And I got a chance to look around his office,” Jimmy said excitedly. “Van Gries has a hugely expensive gamer laptop sitting on his desk. It is big and fast, and you can run almost any financial or security system through that thing, particularly if it’s connected to the mainframe we think they have in the basement. He hung his MIT degree in a big frame on the wall, and…”
“MIT versus Berkeley again? What’s the point spread now?” Ace asked.
“You guys! You never take me seriously.”
“Sure we do, Jimmy. They tease everybody when we stand down,” Bob told him. “If they didn’t like you, they’d totally ignore you.”
Jimmy looked at him and frowned, still not sure. “Okay, but my point is that under that stupid MIT degree is a bookcase, and in that bookcase is a row of tech manuals from a company called DACI. That’s Digital Analytics Consultants, Inc.; they’re a big software development company up in Princeton. Obviously, they’re the ones who Van Gries used to design and integrate his security and financial software. I recognized their logo from halfway across the room. They tried to hire Ronald and me.”
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