Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1) (3 page)

M
cCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

LAS VEGAS

C
hristine Gamboa

C
hristine pinned
the Renaissance logo to her dress, checked her hair and makeup, then stepped from the limousine and walked to the bottom of the stairway, where she waited for the door of the private jet to open. When she heard the door being released from inside, she assumed her most radiant and expectant smile. The door opened and her client for the next couple of days appeared. Alexander "Sasha" Maslov was in his sixties, a thick and sturdy Ukrainian—or was that Russian now?—who had made a fortune in what he described to others as "an old family business in Crimea." She knew better.

When he saw Christine, his big Slavic face morphed from scowl to delight. "Chrissy!" He came down the stairs two at a time, wrapped her in a hug and kissed her on the lips.

"Sasha!" she said.

"Let us go now and you can to tell me all about your new job, Kohana."

I
n the limo
, Maslov poured two glasses of pepper vodka and handed one to Christine. Despite the rule that she couldn't drink on the job, she had learned long ago it was best to have at least one drink with him even if they were headed to her workplace. The way she saw it, it was better to break a few rules than offend a client. Especially this one. She raised her glass to his with a solid clink and threw back the amber liquid, fighting not to gasp as the liquid fire hit her throat and stomach.

Maslov drank his, then roared with approving laughter at her accomplishment. "I think you learn to love my drinks!"

She smiled and blinked away the tears, shook her head to try to clear the buzz that had already hit. "I do it only for you, Sasha. Only you."

"Yes, and this is why you are my favorite Kohana!"

Christine bit her bottom lip and gave him a pouty look. "Favorite Kohana, huh? I bet you have these 'special girlfriends' stashed everywhere, you big charmer."

"Ah, but none like you, my love. Now, you must to tell me about your new job. I liked very much when you wore the outer space jumping suit, you know this?"

"Yes, I know you liked the jumpsuit, but I missed working with people, got tired of staring at computers all day. Renaissance is nice. They pay a little more and they give me three days a week off instead of one.”

"Wonderful. Wonderful. I want Kohana to be well rested when I come. And this time, this is the time when you will finally to marry me, yes?"

"We'll see, Sasha."

He roared again and poured himself another drink. "Yes, we will. We will to see."

O
nce they arrived at Renaissance
, they went straight to the high stakes gaming area, where Maslov played blackjack for hours, all joviality, win or lose. He put away enough pepper vodka to float a boat but never seemed intoxicated. Loose, yes. Drunk, no. Christine stayed nearby to meet any requests; clients like Maslov didn't wait for cocktail waitresses to come around taking requests. Whatever he was drinking or smoking—with him it was always pepper vodka and a particular Cuban cigar—stayed fresh and at hand. She also kept up with how his gambling was going, not because she was required to, but because knowing made it far easier to know whether or not to mention it later.

This had been a good night. She guessed he finished about fifty thousand to the good. In the elevator to his suite, she said, "How'd you do?"

"Wonderful night, Kohana, just wonderful. Sasha won many American dollars this night."

L
ater
, in Maslov's suite, Christine watched as Sasha got up from the lavish bed and walked toward the suite's living area. She stood from the bed and pulled on a hotel robe, then followed. He stood at the glass wall that looked out over the north side of the SPACE campus and the city beyond. She wondered what someone like Sasha saw there. A playground to be raided? A criminal kingdom to rule? And what was she to him and his organization? Princess? Concubine? Or just a loose end?

S
PACE

T
ime had faded away
, as it often does once I dig into a case. I was combing and analyzing, studying the digital breadcrumbs that would tell me who Christine Gamboa was and hopefully what she had e-done. Computers that were nothing more than a novelty a generation ago are today’s life recorders and it was time for some playback on Christine. I walked the halls outside my workroom enough to be sure no one else was still working nearby, then set up my little-yet-kickbutt wireless speaker, connected my phone, and cranked up a long, shuffled playlist.

She had made good money at SPACE—about one-fifty a year during her time as an executive host, ten grand more when she moved in with the brainiacs—but she spent a lot, too. Drove a 7-series BMW, lived in a pricey apartment, dressed expensively, and had an affinity for purses that cost a stupid amount. Her lifestyle was enough to max out her budget and then some. I assumed she picked up some pretty nice tips as a host, but it was hard to imagine enough tips for her to have anything meaningful left over. So how was it that she had over four hundred thousand in her personal checking account?

I dug into her Quicken data but it was no help in figuring out where the money came from. She had only been using the program for seven months, and she had logged a balance forward in her checking account of $453,269.22 when she first set up Quicken. That number was now down to $405,200.86, so in seven months she had spent almost fifty grand of the mystery cash, plus every penny of her salary.

I spent some time going through her spending in more detail, taking notes as I went. Twelve grand on purses. Thousand-dollar bedsheets. Over two thousand a month payment on the BMW, and thirty-nine hundred rent on the apartment. An addiction to the latest and greatest of all things Apple, including an iPhone and iPad, curious since she already had both those items furnished by SPACE. And on and on it went. It was like an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Except she wasn't famous and didn't make enough money to be rich. It sure wasn't family money; according to the background report in her employment file, her parents eked out a living in a small grocery store they owned in rural Arizona.

A knock on the door made me jump. It cracked and Nichols stuck his head in. “Need anything?” He looked awake but looking that way was his job and I understood the real question.

I checked the time on my computer and saw that it was 2:26 a.m. “Am I wearing you out, Jimbo?”

It took a moment for the “Jimbo” to register, then he said, “Oh, no. No. I just thought you might need something.”

The head disappeared and the door closed. I did the math and realized it was 4:26 a.m. back home in Houston, decided to call it a night myself. I engaged the lock screen on my examination computer and stepped through the door. “How late can I get breakfast around here?” I said.

“Up to you,” Nichols said.

“Excellent. See you here tomorrow about ten?”

“Sure, sounds great.”

I thought maybe Nichols would get the hint that I didn’t need him to walk me to my room. Didn’t work. After a couple miles of walking in SPACE, I stood at my room door and said, “Good-night, Jimbo.”

“Good-night.”

W
hen I shut
the water off in the shower, I heard my phone ringing. I walked naked and dripping to the workdesk in the suite's living room and glanced at the screen as the phone rang and vibrated against the hard surface. The caller ID said PRIVATE CALLER. Who in hell would call me at three o’clock in the morning? I picked it up and touched to answer. "Hello?"

"Is this Mr. Flatt?"

"It is."

"Mr. Flatt, my name is Courtney Meyer. I'm a special agent with the FBI, calling from New York."

"Okay," I said. The feebs are never just agents. Always special. "What can I do for you?"

"First, I need to tell you that this call is being recorded. Second, I need your assurance of confidentiality before proceeding with the conversation. Do I have that assurance?"

"It's what, almost six a.m. in New York?"

"I wanted to call when I thought it most likely you'd be alone. Is that the case?"

What the hell? "Yes, Agent, I'm alone. What's this about?" I had worked on a few cases over the years that had FBI involvement, always on the other side. Nothing recent, though, and certainly nothing active.

"I need your agreement to keep this confidential," Meyer said.

"You have it. It's late, so please get to the point."

"We need your assistance on a case."

This was getting stranger by the moment. One thing the Bureau boys and girls never ask for, no matter how badly they might need it, is outside forensic assistance. They'd let a serial killer go before admitting they couldn't get evidence off his computer. "Sorry, I'm tied up on a major case right now."

"We know. You're working for the SPACE casino in Nevada. That's what we need your help with."

I thought about that for a moment, and when it still didn't make the first lick of sense, I touched the phone into speaker mode, laid it on the desk, and said, "Hold on a sec." I continued to mull as I walked to the bathroom and grabbed a towel from the rack. I toweled my hair, face, and neck as I walked back to the living room. When I got there, I said, "Not sure how or why you'd know what case I'm working, but I can't imagine how I can help you."

"I'll remind you that this is extremely confidential, and—"

I cut her off: "You said that already, and I agreed already. Get to the point, please."

"I—we—need you to keep us apprised of progress on the forensic investigation you're conducting."

Like hell. I drew a breath to respond, then did a slow count to ten, willing calm into my soul in the face of this idiocy.

"Mr. Flatt?" she said.

"Agent," I said, "that—"

"It's Special Agent Meyer. M-E-Y-E-R."

"Whatever. Look, you harp to me about the need for confidentiality, then ask me to break confidentiality with my client, with whom I've signed a very strong and very clear confidentiality agreement? Gotta tell you, not gonna happen, not without my client authorizing it. In fact, I don't want to hear any more, don't want to be in a position where you tell me information my client has a contractual expectation for me to tell them."

"You cannot mention this to your client in any way."

"And why exactly do you want these updates from me?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that."

"Then we're done."

"No, Mr. Flatt. We're not done."

I laughed out loud. "Good-night, Special Agent Meyer, M-E-Y-E-R." I reached toward the phone, aiming for the END CALL icon.

"Hang up on me and you will regret it, Mr. Flatt."

This bitch was starting to piss me off. I pulled my finger back from the phone. "Are you threatening me, ma'am?"

"I'm warning you, sir."

"You know one of the things I hate most on this earth?" I said.

"I know virtually all there is to know about you."

That was worth another laugh, but I held back. "Arrogance. You call me in the middle of the night with something this ridiculous and think I'm just gonna fall in line? In addition to the legality and ethics, you know how many cases I'd get once it got out that I divulged client information to law enforcement? Do you have any idea how freaking crazy you sound?"

"You would be better served to think about how 'crazy' it is to antagonize the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Enough. "And you'd be better served to put the crackpipe down and back slowly away. Stuff'll kill you in the end, you know."

This time I touched END CALL.

K
IEV
, UKRAINE

T
he man was old
, his face a leathery map of a hundred creases, but his step was lively and his eyes bright as he strolled generally south along the tree-lined street, keeping to the shade amid the dazzling sunny day. Though he had been but a child, he remembered when Khreshchatyk Street looked very different, more in keeping with traditional Ukrainian architecture, even though it had been heavily influenced by the Russian bastards, first the czarists and later the Bolsheviks. He remembered it becoming a cratered strip of rubble at the hands of the Soviet bastards who planted mines all along it and detonated them by radio control once the Nazi bastards arrived in 1941. He remembered the rebuilding after the Great Patriotic War that eventually transformed it into the beautiful kilometer it almost still was. Almost, because once the Soviet Union fell apart and Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, the influence of the West had been a slow but steady rot. Where proud old businesses once stood, today's storefronts on the grand street showed names like Gucci and DKNY and Chanel. And TGIF. What the fuck was that? Italian. American. French. Bastards all.

At the end of the street, he made his way inside the sprawl of Bessarabska Market, where he took his time and eventually filled a small basket with fruits and vegetables from the various stalls. He paid for some of the goods. He offered to pay for all, but many merchants recognized him and refused his grivna. To these he nodded his appreciation instead.

Basket in hand, he left the market and headed back the way he had come. Halfway up Khreshchatyk, he came to his apartment building on the left side of the street. Many of his colleagues and competitors, especially the young snots, had made their way to the suburbs of Kiev where they built ridiculous houses. He had no need to prove himself. No need to scream to the world, "Look at me!" No, he had grown up in the Center, and it was there that he would live until he breathed his last. He turned into a small alley, punched his code into the gate, then walked around the back of the building. There he keyed in another code to enter the building, and stepped inside.

Outside, the building was an old, beautifully maintained example of architecture that inspired the soul. Once through the door, the building had enjoyed the most basic of maintenance and no renovation since its construction in 1949. This was Kiev. This was Ukraine. Who wanted to spend money on things few would ever see and nobody gave a shit about? He had installed an elevator in the 1990s so he wouldn't have to listen to the whining from the paying tenants, but he had never been inside it. Stairs were good for a man, body and soul. When the staircase reached its last landing, he inserted his massive key into a state-of-the-art security lock, rotated it to the click, then twisted the handle and stepped inside.

The interior of the apartment yielded another transition. Unlike the building's stately outer appearance, and even more unlike the dreary old common areas outside his door, the apartment was meticulously maintained and filled with lavish Ukrainian antiques. He put away the fruits and vegetables, then crossed the big open room from the kitchen area to the living area. After easing down onto a pillowy leather sofa, he picked up a remote control and switched on the electronics which enabled him to monitor his business interests around the world. Some of this monitoring took the form of stock quotes and such, but more interesting were the cameras that allowed him to literally see and hear inside his businesses. He was particularly concerned about the state of affairs at his Las Vegas operation. Stupid bastards. Navigating menus with the remote, he pulled up one of the cameras of that branch and turned up the volume a bit. He then pushed a button to extend his footrest and recline his end of the sofa, and settled in to observe. He first watched the room of computer workers. They looked busy. Good. He pushed a button on the remote and switched to the view from a very different camera, one whose feed stirred something primal in his aged loins.