Hellenic Immortal (6 page)

“I’m confused,” I admitted. “Are FBI agents in the practice of waking up suspected terrorists in their hotel rooms and telling them they think they’re a terrorist?”

“Habitually no, not unless there’s torture involved, and again, that’s usually not in our charter. We have the CIA for that.”

“That’s a joke, right?”

“Sort of. I’m not here in an entirely official capacity.”

“You want to translate that for me?”

“They don’t know we’re talking,” he clarified.

“That’s fantastic.”

Mike lit another cigarette, and continued. “We’ve had someone on you since you left the Queen Charlottes. The idea was to monitor your activities and see who you contacted, that sort of thing. None of which I was a part of. Ariadne is my problem. But when she turned up next to you on a barstool, the cases dovetailed. Since they think you’re the bigger fish, their investigation ate mine and I ended up part of a team. I’m not fond of teams.”

“You picked a funny profession then,” I said.

“I guess. But every pack can tolerate one or two lone wolves.”

With all the talk of wolves, fish, and investigations being eaten, I suddenly realized how hungry I was.

“Anyway,” he said, “I am of the minority opinion that Ariadne is the one we should be worrying about, not you. So rather than bang my head against a wall, I handed over my case files and took a vacation. They think I’m in Maui.”

“Maybe you should be. It’s nice there.” I picked up the phone to order some food.

“I’m more of a hiker type. Who are you calling?”

“Room service. I’m starved.”

“Please don’t,” he said, somewhat urgently.

“Why not?” I asked, half-expecting him to put his hand on his gun.

“Because the guy who delivers it will be an agent. Probably Ralph, unless his shift is over. And it’ll be Linda who takes the order.”

“No shit?”

“I told you; you’re under constant surveillance.”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“Since you got into town, except for maybe a few hours there when you switched hotels. Right now they’re trying to figure out how come none of the bugs they planted in here work anymore.”

“You removed them?”

“Yeah, while you were asleep.”

“I suppose there’s a camera in the hallway too?”

Mike blew out a puff of smoke. “There’s always a camera in the hallway. They just jacked into hotel surveillance. Cheaper. And good news for us; casinos can’t put cameras in the rooms.”

“Okay. So how’d you get in here without being seen?” I asked.

“Balcony.”

I stared at him for a long time because that was just about impossible. The room did have a small balcony, but it was separated from the balcony for the next room by about fifteen feet of air, and from the ground by three stories. Hard to believe he made either jump.

“You seem to have gone through a whole lot of trouble just to find out I don’t know anything about Ariadne Papos.”

He smiled. “I already knew that.”

I fell back onto the bed and surrendered to the notion that none of this was going to be making any sense anytime soon. “You risked your job to enter the room of a guy who your bosses think is a terrorist to ask him a question you already knew the answer to? Tell you what; how about I go back to sleep, you jump out the window, and we’ll pretend this never happened, okay?”

“I think we can help each other,” he said.

“Really? What sort of help did you have in mind?”

“I’m guessing you don’t much care to be under a government eyeball. I know the protocols; I can help you disappear.”

“I can disappear on my own just fine,” I said.

“Bet that’s what you thought when you left the island with all that cash,” he said, flicking his cigarette and letting the ashes fall on the floor.

He had a point. “What can I do for you?”

“Ariadne is interested in you, so I am too. I think you can help me find her.”

This had to be one of the more preposterous conversations I’d had in my very, very long life. Mike was either completely lying to me, or he was keeping significant portions of the story to himself, and I wasn’t sure which. All I knew for certain was that the man standing in my bedroom was willing to risk a great deal to find a woman I’d spent all of two minutes with. I mean okay, she was pretty, but really. It just didn’t add up.

I got up from the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. Then I’m going to order some room service and have a nice, big meal. After that, I’m going to check myself out of this hotel and go on a long vacation somewhere. You can do whatever you want.”

He stood up as well. “I think you’re underestimating the persistence of a coordinated FBI surveillance team.”
 

“And I think they’re underestimating me . . . as are you.”

“Maybe so. You’re still making a mistake.” He tilted his head at me in a way not dissimilar to that of a dog who thinks he might have heard his master’s voice but isn’t entirely sure. “What
did
Ariadne say to you? Aside from her name.”

“She told me I was being followed.”

“Why do you think she warned you?”

“I don’t know. Why did you?”

“To gain your confidence.”
 

“There you go.” I offered him my hand, which he took. “It’s been weird,” I admitted. “Call ahead next time.”

“Can’t guarantee that.” He smiled. He obviously thought there was going to be a next time.

“Guess not,” I said. “I take it you can show yourself out?”

He glanced over to the balcony. “Sure; not a problem.”

*
 
*
 
*

In the shower, I reflected on the foolishness of what I’d just done, meaning specifically that I had left an armed man in my hotel room with a large supply of cash while I stood naked with nothing to protect me other than a flimsy—and certainly not bullet-proof—shower curtain. Either this meant that something about Mike made me want to trust him, or my low blood-sugar level was affecting my judgment.

Anyway, it was a pretty quick shower. And when I emerged from the bathroom, I found Mike had indeed let himself out. My money was exactly where it was supposed to be. And on the bed was a small pile of silver disks; he’d left me the electronic bugs.

The balcony door was open. I stuck my head outside and looked around, but there was nothing to see except a parking lot.

Of course he couldn’t have actually left that way. It wasn’t possible.

DION. TRULY, I HAVE HAD MANY THINGS. BUT POSSESSIONS ONLY BRING HAPPINESS IF EMPLOYED CORRECTLY. TO HAVE IS NOT A REASON UNTO ITSELF.

From the dialogues of Silenus the Younger. Text corrected and translated by Ariadne

The funny thing about knowing you’re being followed because someone thinks you’re suspicious, is that once you know that, you really can’t help but act suspicious.

   
I spent the next few days taking little trips out of the hotel, and since I hadn’t been doing that before, it had to have gotten some attention. Likewise, my tendency to break into an occasional sprint probably raised a few eyebrows.

I know a little bit about surveillance. In the mid-seventeen hundreds, a French duke hired me to find out which of his friends was plotting to kill him. Since he was a high functioning paranoid with a lot of friends and an impressive imagination, this took a long time and plenty of extra staff, and was helped along by the fact that none of his friends were actually plotting anything against him. I think I could have held the position for a few decades had he not been poisoned by his own wife. We never checked her. I almost feel bad about this.

Anyway, I left the casino because then the people following my movements couldn’t use casino cameras and had to actually walk around with me, and that made my prior experience mildly useful.

With a little effort, I was able to identify between three and four agents rotating on me. I could shake three or four people if this were still the mid-seventeen hundreds. It wasn’t, so I couldn’t be positive I was accounting for everything.

Fortunately, I know a better class of criminal than myself.

*
 
*
 
*

“Please say that again,” Tchekhy urged. The discontent in his voice was palpable. I could have opened with telling him I was on a prepaid cell phone I had just bought and was standing outside the casino, before telling him about the whole government-watching-everything-I-do thing, but I wanted to make him a little nervous because it was his own fault I was in Las Vegas in the first place. An immortal man who hates official attention shouldn’t be anywhere near this many private surveillance cameras, FBI or no. I expected better from him.

For the record, I have nothing against governments as such. If countries are a logical progression from tribes, government is the tribal council, and I get that. The problem is that while it was much harder to insinuate myself into a tribe—which I had to do quite a lot—once I was in, I was in. Governments tend to require proof of who you are on a regular basis, and they don’t really like it when your reason for not having proof is that you’re older than their country. I can get away with a lot, thanks to Tchekhy’s exceptional forgery skills, but I haven’t invested in the kind of detailed identities that could survive extensive scrutiny. And since governments tend to institutionalize paranoia (this happens with every government once it gets large enough) it wouldn’t take much to get me locked up.

“The FBI thinks I’m a person of interest,” I explained. “And now I’ve got a surveillance team on me. I could use some advice. I’m using a cell phone I just bought, by the way, so don’t hang up.”

“And are you . . .”

“I’m on the strip watching one of my tails have an animated argument with his own ear. It’s sort of funny. But I think they’ve already replaced the bugs in my room, and I’m afraid if I go to sleep tonight I’ll wake up with one of those trackers they put on wildlife to follow migratory patterns attached to me.”

“This is a valid concern.”

“Is it really?” I asked, surprised. I was kidding.

“Microdot technology, yes. Probably not legal yet.” Somehow, any long conversation with Tchekhy ends with me being more terrified than when I started. “You will need to blow up their surveillance entirely for at least one hour to allow time for the trail to disappear. As soon as you have a window, you must put as much distance between yourself and Las Vegas as possible. Do you have a car?”

“I don’t. And buying one won’t work, will it?”

“No. And a taxi means a driver. You would have to kill the driver.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that.” I would love to tell you I didn’t consider taking this suggestion seriously.

“No. Likewise airplanes leave trails.”

Standing on the corner, I was still scoping the people on the strip, passively looking for anyone showing interest in me. I saw Mike. He was in a coffee shop, pretending not to look my way.

“Let’s say I’ve got that covered,” I said. “Tell me how to open that window.”

*
 
*
 
*

“Good coffee,” I stated, taking a seat at a table adjacent to Mike, who was attempting to disappear into his newspaper. It was a few minutes after I’d gotten off the phone, and Mike had no doubt spent those few minutes muttering,
Don’t come in here, don’t come in here
under his breath as I walked over.

“Don’t talk to me,” he muttered, snapping his newspaper. “Get out of here before they put us together.”

“Maybe you had too much,” I said cheerily. “It makes you jittery.” This caused Mike to stand, or attempt to, until I put my hand on his wrist. “That will draw even more attention to you. Stay behind the paper.”

Urgently, he growled, “I can’t help you if I’m locked up.”

I had positioned myself so that I could look straight out onto the street. None of the people who could have made our conversation extra awkward were in the shop.

“What do you want?” Mike asked.

“Well, I was thinking the best way to get you to stop following me was to prove you aren’t in Maui. What do you think?”

Mike glared over the paper. I wasn’t looking right at him, but it felt like a pretty violent stare.

“I’m kidding. I want your help. But you do need to relax.”

“I’m pretty damn far from relaxed here.”

“Look, they have a four-man team on rotation, I’ve made all of them, and the one with eyes on me right now is busy looking through the trashcan across the street. With the sun glare off the window, he can see me, but not you. Although I might be wrong about that last part, so keep the paper up.”

“Why is he looking through the trash?”

“I tossed a prepaid cell phone in there a minute ago,” I said, taking a quick sip of coffee. “I think he thinks I made an important call on it.”

“Did you? They’ll trace the call.”

“Not on that phone. I bought two.”

The paper crumpled, which may have signified either surprise or consternation. “I would hate running surveillance on you, wouldn’t I?”

“I actually know what I’m doing when I’m sober,” I assured him. I leaned over to pretend to tie my shoe. This put me just below his table. The coffee shop was agent-free, but it was also busy, and I didn’t care to have a lot of people hearing us.