The Bleeding Sun (6 page)

Lucas introduced himself as
William Adams, the CEO of Zipline, stating that he had some
business discussions with Mr. Romanovich. Although the guards were
not particularly amused by the excuse and didn’t show any sign of
allowing him to go through, a bit of debate and few moments of
cursing in Russian ensured that the guests of the VIP enclosure
were made aware of his presence. Owing to the debacle the entire
floor was looking at his direction trying to comprehend what was
going on. Romanovich immediately called up his security chief
looking for an explanation about what was going on. After talking
with the security guard, he ordered them to escort Mr. Adams to the
VIP enclave since he wanted to have a word with him. Lucas’s plan
was successful; his tantrum had ensured that he was getting
noticed.

As he entered the enclosure and
was ordered to sit down, Lucas checked the scenario with a brief
180 degree glance. Two guards were standing by his side with
silenced pistols dangling from the holsters. He could also see that
the Sheikh carried a dagger with him and Rosmus had his own pistol
lying in front of him on the table. Romanovich was the only person
who didn’t seem to carry a gun and was busy enjoying the company of
his blonde guests. Romanovich looked a lot younger than an average
60 year old. As of Rosmus, his was a face of a battle hardened
criminal. Wearing a loose shirt beneath the leather jacket, Lucas
could now see the tattoo inked on the front of his neck…a knife
piercing his neck from side to side with a whole lot of blood drops
signifying the number of people he had personally killed. The
sheikh sitting by his side was not Suleiman Hossein. It was Sheikh
Bakhtiyar, the Kuwaiti Oil tycoon whom he had seen previously at
the casino. He was surely working with Rosmus for the consignment
that they were talking about the other day.

All of them stared at him while
Romanovich sought an explanation on what Lucas was doing in the
casino. Well, this was his chance to impress Romanovich. Lucas
introduced himself as William Adams, the CEO of Zipline. He created
a background story where William Adams was born in Vladivostok in
Russia where his father worked in the dockyard. Later his father
moved to Amsterdam where he was raised. That was a good enough
explanation of his fluency in Russian and his overall outlook.
Lucas started Zipline nearly 3 years ago as a small door to door
delivery company and had expanded his business vastly in the past 3
years. Zipline was a fully grown logistics company now which had
already expanded to various Asian countries like India, Thailand
and China.

Hence Mr. Adams wanted to talk to
Mr. Romanovich about a business proposal where Romanovich would be
made a stakeholder in the company and in return would help the
business to grow worldwide with the help of his resources and
financial background. Also, Zipline was looking to desperately
penetrate the logistics market of the Middle East, US and Cuba
where he believed Romanovich could be of considerable help with his
experience and wise counsel. Romanovich was thoroughly impressed by
the young guy’s presentation skill; he wanted to get into more
details before committing to any form of agreement. So he asked
Lucas to meet him later in the night at the Violet suite with
details on the plan.

Lucas’s plan had worked perfectly.
He rose up and shook Mr. Romanovich and Rosmus’s hands although
Rosmus didn’t seem to be too interested. He attached a tracking
patch to Rosmus’s sleeve while shaking his hand. He would place a
tracker on Romanovich as well when they would meet later. The
violet suite was a luxury penthouse, the grandest form of
accommodation available in the Tropicana casino and was located on
the topmost floor. The violet room had its own private swimming
pool, gymnasium, games room and full sized bar apart from other
facilities. On the very top of the casino, Romanovich had his
private helipad.

Lucas had a lot of work to do.
First up on his task list was a way to find a key to one of the
hotel rooms and get hold of his backpack. He could very well try to
book a room using his fake passport, but the risk was too high and
his mission could be in complete jeopardy if his fake identities
were already out courtesy of the mole. So he would need to find a
hotel guest, immobilize him temporarily and get hold of his keys
without anyone suspecting that something was not right. Lucas left
the VIP enclosure seeking farewell and headed off to the floor
below. He needed to find his prey quickly.

Lucas headed off
to the elevators leading to the guestrooms. There were five
elevators for the guests. Romanovich had his personal express
elevator for the penthouse with two guards waiting at the elevator
entrance. However all of these elevators were located beside each
other. He waited for some time and then followed a guest on to one
of the elevators. He started a conversation in order to get his
name and details. The guy was Sam and he was an American banker by
profession who had come over for a business meet. He would be
leaving Cuba the next day and hence planned to spend considerable
amount of time that night in the casino. However, he was diabetic
and hence needed to take his daily medication. So he was heading
back to his room on the 18
^th
floor for some time. Lucas
explained that he too was staying on the 18
^th
floor and followed him out
of the elevator.

The corridors leading to the rooms
were empty; a perfect hunting spot. Sam stopped in front of Room
1808 as Lucas passed on towards room number 1821 where he was
apparently staying. He quickly checked the position of the security
cameras, went on to room 1821 before returning back to 1808. He put
up the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door knob and then slowly
knocked on the door. Sam opened up rather surprised to see Lucas at
his door. Lucas explained that his keycard was not working and
hence it would be really helpful if Sam allowed him to use the
phone to call up the room service personnel. Sam was more than
willing to help and allowed him in. Lucas seized upon the
opportunity with both hands after closing the door. As Sam turned
away to lead him to the phone, a swift knock on the side of the
neck ensured that Sam would rest in peace for the next few hours.
Lucas used the bed sheet and towels to tie him up. He also gagged
him to ensure that he could not scream in case he woke up before
Lucas finished the job. He pulled out the keycard, locked the door
and headed off to the other end of the corridor in search of the
service elevator. He needed his equipment back.

After locating
the elevator, he needed to figure out a plan to bring his equipment
up to the room without having to go through the baggage scanners
and security personnel near the main reception and casino. He took
the elevator, headed to the ground floor and walked through the
main lobby into the streets. He took a right turn and headed off to
the alleys leading to the back of the casino. Finding his backpack
was not a big problem; it was lying in the elevator shaft where he
had left it earlier. He needed to figure out a way to get it to the
18
^th
floor. He took out the grappling gook and tied one end of the
wire with his bag. Next he placed the bag on top of the small
elevator car and attached the hook to the main cables to ensure
that it did not fall off.

He headed back
to the hotel once again, passing through the main lobby, taking the
main elevator to the 17
^th
floor. Like the
18
^th
floor, the corridors leading to this floor was empty as well.
He headed to the service elevator. He had gathered a bottle of
cleaning spray from a service cart that was left stranded at the
end of the hallway by the room service personnel. As he went
towards the service elevator, he sprayed the cleaning spray on the
two security cameras to ensure the security personnel wouldn’t get
a clear footage of what was going on. He quickly moved to the
service elevator and pressed the button to bring up the elevator to
the 17
^th
floor. After that Lucas took the main elevator and moved up
to the 18
^th
floor.

The hallway was
still empty. He headed to his room and brought Sam’s shaving foam
from the washroom. As he headed down the hallway towards the
service elevator, he ensured that he sprayed the foam on each of
the cameras. He forced open the service elevator door and stepped
down on the elevator car to obtain his backpack. After securing the
same, he used the grappling hook to pull himself up back to the
18
^th
floor. On his way back to the room, he wiped off the foam
from the security cams on the way. So by the time the security guys
came up to check the glitch, the cams would be up and running once
again causing minimal sense of alarm.

Sam was still lying unconscious as
Lucas opened up his backpack and started assembling his stuff. He
took out a couple of C4 sticks and the smoke grenades. He would
need them to create utter chaos during his exit plan. He carried
the explosives with him along with the pistol and his goggles. He
also took out the Swiss knife and secured it in a special
compartment on the sole of his right boot. He wore the goggles,
changed the color of the glass for easy visibility at night and
turned the inbuilt infrared lights on so that the cameras could not
detect his face. He also took out a few spare tracking patches. He
put the rest of the contents in the backpack and headed out of the
room.

He went to the
service elevator shaft and attached the bag to the cable using the
grappling hook. He also closed the elevator door to ensure that no
one would suspect that something was wrong. After this, Lucas went
down the emergency stairs to the 17
^th
floor and attached a C4
stick to the fire safety system itself. The detonator was embedded
which could be detonated remotely using his watch. He headed to the
49
^th
floor first and called up the service elevator. Next he
headed back to the main elevator and went to the
50
^th
floor to meet Romanovich. It was time for
showdown.

While the elevator was moving up,
Lucas stacked another C4 stick to the elevator’s ceiling after
removing the shaft. He also placed the smoke grenades there so that
once the C4 was detonated, the whole elevator shaft would be
covered in smoke. This would also ensure that all elevators
including Romanovich’s express elevator was rendered useless. He
had made enough arrangement to create a panic. He surely would not
be able to carry the pistol with him while meeting Romanovich. So
he had to think of an excuse for carrying one.

The elevator
came to a halt at the 50
^th
floor. Romanovich’s
personal guards were waiting outside the penthouse. Any visitor had
to go through a pat down before they could head over to meet
Romanovich. Lucas could clearly see four heavily built men waiting
at the main entrance. They were surely carrying firearms and looked
equally capable in hand to hand combat. The symbol of ‘Viper’ was
tattooed on two of their necks. These guys were the very cream of
Rosmus’s notorious and battle hardened security agency. Even before
they searched him, Lucas handed over the pistol suggesting that
being a CEO of a rapidly growing company, he had developed multiple
enemies worldwide and hence he always carried the same for
self-defense. However he would not need the same for his meeting
with Mr. Romanovich and hence the security personnel should keep it
in their custody.

After a thorough pat down, the
Viper operatives determined that Lucas did not possess any other
form of weapon with him. So after a brief discussion with someone
on the phone, Lucas was allowed to enter the penthouse while they
kept the pistol in their custody. Lucas was happy. No matter how
many times they would try, they would never be able to identify his
face later from the camera footage since the infrared light would
ensure that his face was not clearly visible in any of the cameras.
So he could safely and anonymously cause havoc that
night.

Lucas was escorted to the master
suite by one of the guards. As he entered the room, he could see
Romanovich and Rosmus were having a heated discussion about some
unfinished business. Romanovich ordered Rosmus to take care of the
problem at any cost. Rosmus left the room in real haste while
cursing along. He was not particularly pleased with whatever
Romanovich had ordered him to do. Lucas turned the dial of his
watch to ensure that the tracker was still in place with Rosmus and
was transmitting the signal clearly.

While shaking his hand, he
attached a tracker patch to Romanovich’s shirt. He asked Lucas to
be seated as he prepared a drink for himself. He came back with a
glass of scotch, sat down on the recliner and pulled out a cigar.
‘Well Mr. Adams, how can I help you and your company?’ Lucas had a
really interesting back story prepared for this purpose. His
clientele included not only the big corporations but also
organizations who paid a huge amount of money to use their
logistics for transporting things which they couldn’t do officially
using other companies. That was the USP of ‘Zipline’, they had
normal customers as well as a range of special customers with
special needs. His organization took care of such assignments in
discretely delivering the cargo without getting intercepted by the
law enforcement agencies. Recently, Zipline had setup their
operations in India and Qatar. However the Indian enforcement
agencies were creating obstacles to their operations while
transferring cargo from the Middle East to India.