Karen Vail 01 - Velocity (49 page)

Vail rose above the rooftop, then swung back over it. That was her cue—before the wind blew her away again. She brought her arm out slowly, lowered her body to the surface, then braked. Unhooked the carabiner and undid the cable. It retracted and the helicopter moved off, presumably to drop Dixon, Mann, and DeSantos onto the grounds somewhere below.

Vail found the roof exit and pul ed open the metal door. Clanked down the stairs and came out on the fifty-seventh floor.

Glock in hand, she moved down the hal toward one of the condos, where light splashed out into the corridor. When she arrived, she saw a man of about Robby’s age, lying stil on the floor. Pooled blood around his head.

She felt a pang in her stomach—but as she approached, she could tel the body type was significantly smal er and slighter. Gunshot wound to the head. No need to check for a pulse.

Vail rapidly cleared the rooms and found them empty. “Robby! You in here?”

Listened. Nothing, not a grumble, a moan, a kick against a closet door. She moved back out toward the hal way and pul ed LOWIS from her pocket. The signal appeared to be strong, glowing green and yel ow.

She pul ed her two-way and raised Clar on channel 9. “Mark, LOWIS has two lights: green and yel ow. What does that mean?”

“Where are you?”

“Fifty-seventh floor of Vdara. Outside what I’m guessing is Vil arreal’s condo.

There’s a DB, GSW to the forehead.”

“We’l cal it in. Meantime, go down to a lower floor. Here’s the key. Green and brown are your friends: they mean you’re within fifty yards on the x-axis for green and within fifty yards in the y-axis for brown. Yel ow or amber are bad: you’re out of range in the y-axis. But blue is the worst. You see blue, you’re cold—she’s total y lost the signal. They’ve moved beyond about a hundred yards in al directions.”

“Jesus, could you have made it more confusing?” Vail ran toward the staircase.

No—the elevator. It was a risk, particularly if they were on a middle floor and she went down too far, she’d pass them by—but walking down dozens of flights would take too long if they were headed out of the building.
How high is a floor in this
building? How many yards?

Vail looked down at LOWIS and stopped. “Wait a minute—the signal. Mark, the display, LOWIS went black!”

“Stand by,” Clar said.

Vail stood there, heart pounding, emotion flooding her body, tears forming in her eyes. She stared at LOWIS’s blank screen. “C’mon, god-dammit, work! What’s wrong with you?”

“Okay, okay—” Clar’s voice boomed over the radio. “She’s fine. She’l come back online. The signal from Ortega’s phone cut out. Either it was shut off or the battery came dislodged. But the FBI techs got it back and they’re using it as that roving bug we discussed. So here’s what you need to do. See that flat button on the right side?”

Vail fumbled with LOWIS and found the slight protrusion. “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

“Push and hold it for five seconds. She’l reboot and then she should pick up the new signal.”

“Reboot? I don’t have time for that. C’mon, Clar, what kind of piece of shit did you build?”

“Karen, another time I’d take offense to that.” His voice was calm and measured.

“But I know you’re under tremendous stress. Take a breath. She’l be up in a few more seconds.”

As Clar promised, the device had begun loading its operating system. “Okay—

it’s scrol ing through some red computer code.” She closed her eyes and took a breath. “Sorry about what I said.”

“Already forgotten. Now pay attention, she’s almost ready. She’l reacquire the signal automatical y. Nothing for you to do.”

Vail moved forward and pressed the elevator button. “What am I looking for?”

“Green and brown are good, remember? They mean you’re within fifty yards on the x- or y-axes. If you see amber or yel ow, you’re out of the fifty yard range.”

The elevator door opened and Vail got in. “What about purple?”

“Oh, right. If she’s purple, turn left or right. Don’t know which. That’l be in version 2.0. Like al of us, LOWIS has her limitations.”

Vail kept her eyes on the glowing green, yel ow, and purple lights as the elevator descended rapidly. She pressed the button for 38, and would thereafter stop at 28, then every ten floors—and assess LOWIS’s color, because her target would be moving as wel .

At 38, the display went blue—and a cold sweat broke out across her forehead.

Her gaze flicked over to the numerical floor level display—to hel with the ten-floor plan. She hit
L
and watched LOWIS’s screen. As she approached Lobby, the light changed to green.

Bingo.

The doors slid apart and she ran forward, watching the LED display. Brown, amber—and purple. She could only turn left, which led her down the hal , toward the garage and the back of the building. A moment later, she sighed relief: LOWIS

sported green and brown lights.

Vail left Vdara and fol owed the signs into the walkway that led to the Bel agio’s Spa Tower, a separate, though connected, high-rise that housed a glass-ceilinged conservatory, convention rooms, and luxury facilities for pampering hotel guests.

According to the placards she had seen, above her was the monorail that ferried guests from CityCenter directly into the Bel agio. She rotated her head left and right, Vegas’s unmatched nightscape partial y visible through the glass wal s.

Halfway through the tunnel, she glanced down at the tracking device.

Brown and amber lights stared back at her. They were on the same level as she was, but more than fifty yards away.

Shit!
She quickened her pace, then sprinted out of the walkway and into the Spa Tower. Ahead was a large, glass-enclosed storefront, “News-stand” emblazoned on the sign above the door. She ran past it and continued down the hal . The green LED came on, but the purple light once again flicked to life. She looked ahead, through the throng of passing people, but couldn’t see Robby—or anyone else who appeared to be moving at a pretty good clip. But as LOWIS had indicated, about a hundred feet ahead there was a turn in the corridor.

Vail pressed forward, pushing through the masses, weaving in and out, down a slight incline, then past Sensi, a futuristic bar with a water fountain cascading down the wal , its countertop a mirror of black liquid.

LOWIS went dark—then the green and purple LEDs popped on. Vail looked up and swung right, her only choice. Shorter corridor. Dominating the wal to her left—

the Jean Philippe Patisserie—the coolest pastry shop she’d ever seen. Multilevel, furrowed blown glass troughs formed what was surely the most unique chocolate fountain ever created.

Vail elevated onto her toes and peered over the heads of the people mil ing about the wide hal way, but despite Robby’s height, she did not see him. She was beginning to think that LOWIS, with her high-tech proximity sensors and smart ping digital signal processing abilities—or whatever the hel Clar had cal ed it—was leading her on an old-fashioned, low-tech wild goose chase.

THE CHOPPER HOVERED over the main artery, South Las Vegas Boulevard, southeast of the Bel agio’s main entrance. A tree-studded grass-carpeted knol stood nearby that separated twin three-lane drives leading up to the property, where the bel men worked feverishly to unload new arrivals.

Slow-moving traffic came to a stop to watch—and steer clear of—the hovering helicopter. Dixon and DeSantos dropped to the ground, then Clar retracted the rope and took the chopper higher, away from the roadway.

DeSantos slapped Dixon on the arm. “Let’s go!”

VAIL FOLLOWED THE CORRIDORS past the conservatory on the left, then ahead into the bright and expansive Bel agio lobby. Decorative molding-edged squares checkerboarded the ceiling. At its center sprouted an oblong bouquet of blown glass flowers bursting with colorful hues, from blood red to lime green.

Her rubber soled shoes gripped the cream-and-brown granite tile as she ran toward the location LOWIS directed her: the front entrance. The LED glowed green and brown, which meant she was close. And headed in the right direction.

Vail exploded through the doors into darkness—her eyes had to adjust from the bril iant lights of the lobby—and she emerged in the carport. Doormen and bel hops were moving about, ferrying new arrivals into the hotel, and departing guests into waiting taxis.

The screen added purple to its array of colors—they had turned.
But which way?

If I lose them now, they’ll blend into the crowd.
Even with the homing device, there’d be myriad places they could go. It’d be near impossible for her alone to search al the buildings, al eyways, ancil ary roads, and casinos. And how long wil that cel battery last? What if it wasn’t Robby she was pursuing?

Directly in front of her stood a curving roadway that slanted down and away, to the left and to the right, split by a central tree-covered island where people seemed to be gathering to watch something ahead of them.

Vail climbed atop a short cement column—and saw two men running along the roadway to her right.

She jumped down and took off in that direction.

ROBBY BURST THROUGH a crowd in the Bel agio’s lobby. Two men, who had engaged him as he exited the Vdara elevator, remained in close pursuit.

He’d knocked down three women a hundred yards or so back, but it couldn’t be helped. If those pursuing him pul ed a weapon, there’d be a lot of people
permanently
on the floor. And he didn’t want that to happen.

Robby pul ed Diego’s phone and once again pressed various buttons, but in brief glances as he ran, it didn’t appear as if the keypad was working. He had already removed and reseated the battery, but it had no effect. He flipped the lid closed and shoved the cel back into his pocket in time to stiff-arm a door with a large brass
B

on the handle.

He exited the hotel and ran through the carport, then angled right onto a walkway beside a dense row of privet hedges. To his left, throngs of people lined a cement retaining wal that bordered a large man-made lake. Loud music began blaring from the speakers. Jets of water spewed forth into the night sky.

Robby chanced a quick glance over his right shoulder and saw the two men paral eling him on the other side of the tal , wide row of hedges. If he could get to the end of the road before they did, he’d be on the main strip, where, despite his height, it’d be easier for him to get lost in the throng of mil ing tourists—or find a circulating Vegas police cruiser.

He pushed forward and began picking his way through the crowd.

VAIL RAN TOWARD the cement walkway that snaked along the periphery of the manmade lake she had seen from the Huey.

There—bobbing up and down, the unmistakable form of the head and shoulders of a six-foot-seven man as he twisted and bumped his way through the dense mass of humanity.

Vail felt a swel of excitement—Robby was alive, and he was only a few dozen yards away.

But off to the right, two large Hispanic men ran alongside the hedges, one slightly behind Robby and the other considerably ahead.

As Vail opened her mouth to scream his name, the roar of bass-booming music blared from the large, camouflaged speakers, fol owed almost immediately by the spurting of high-powered water jets. As if vacuumed away, her shout was swal owed by the noise.

Vail pushed forward, forcing her way through the crowd, twisting sideways and using her shoulder to part the masses.

Robby’s only fifty yards away.

And an armed hit squad was in pursuit.

Either Robby or one of the two men pursuing him was carrying the cel phone she’d been tracking. As long as she could maintain eye contact with Robby, it didn’t matter. The dense wal of privets was, for the moment, preventing the men from reaching him. But in the distance, the hedge—and the path—came to an end.

She had to get to the pursuing assassins before they could get to Robby—or risk firing off a few rounds into the lake. The gunshots would hopeful y cause a stir and be reported to Vegas Metro Police, which she figured maintained a respectable presence on the strip. Problem was, she didn’t see any cops where and when she needed them: here. And now.

The water jets blasted and the music boomed, sounding like a twenty-one-gun salute.

And up ahead, a glimpse of Robby’s head. So close—and yet unreachable.

She yel ed—knowing he couldn’t hear her—but she didn’t know what else to do.

She grabbed her radio. “This is Vail. Anyone on Las Vegas Boulevard, near the Bel agio entrance?”

She brought the radio to her ear, uncertain she would be able to even hear the response above the noise.

“Negative.” DeSantos’s voice? Clar’s? Mann’s? Vail couldn’t tel .

“I’ve got eyes on Robby,” Vail said. “Being pursued through the crowd by two armed mercenaries. Need assistance.”

“In pursuit—”

Dixon’s voice. But she couldn’t make out the rest of her transmission.

Vail looked skyward.
Where the hell’s the Huey?

As Robby approached the boulevard—amid the intense glare of Planet Hol ywood’s turquoise lights and Paris’s neon-striped hot air bal oon—she saw Robby’s head and shoulders stop abruptly.

He turned back in her direction, took a step, stopped again, then looked around.

Other armed men must’ve appeared ahead of him, blocking his way. Shit—

Robby was now moving. Climbing. Standing on something.

Facing the expansive lake, his body was silhouetted against the pluming, brightly lit white wal of water.

She pushed forward. “No!”

But her voice was swal owed by the spouting jets, the booming horns, and masses of people in front of her.