“Never again,” he muttered under his breath as he smiled at the broad-shouldered doorman. “I’m on holiday.” He silently cursed Ardman, made his way to the main bar and ordered a large whisky.
This late in the evening, the casino was busy with the rich and the beautiful from all round the world. Old men with young women; mature women with young men. Chance was interested in none of them. He was intent on the men in suits who stood just too stiffly, whose jackets bulged just too much, who watched but never played or drank. It took him ten minutes before he was sure he had registered all the security staff.
What he did not see was the woman studying him from the shadows on the other side of the bar. Tall and slim, she wore a pale blue evening gown with an expensive-looking diamond necklace and matching earrings. Her hair was a startling auburn and her eyes were bright blue.
Chance himself blended in well – an unremarkable man of about forty, with a rugged, experienced face. A businessman enjoying an expensive night out perhaps. No one special. No one memorable. It was an image that Chance cultivated. He liked not to be noticed. He finished his drink, left a tip that was just big enough to ensure the barman would not remember him and then went to the cloakroom.
“You’re holding a briefcase for me,” John Chance told the smartly dressed man at the desk. “The name is Enfield. Harrison Enfield.”
“Of course, Mr Enfield.” The man’s accent was French. He returned a moment later with a metal briefcase.
Chance opened the case and glanced inside – seeing exactly what he had expected. A wig, false beard and an expensive suit in a small size. There was one other thing, a small metal box with a switch on the side. Chance took it out and slipped it into his pocket. He snapped the case closed and smiled his thanks to the young man.
From the raised area round the main roulette table, Chance had a good view of most of the casino floor. He placed a small bet on number seven and hoped he didn’t win. Then, keeping his hand in his jacket pocket, he pressed the small button on the side of the metal box and started to count the seconds.
Chance knew that the moment he activated the device in his pocket, every one of the hidden surveillance cameras throughout the casino went blind. The great thing about a wireless intranet system was you could put cameras wherever you wanted and they just radioed their pictures into the network. But if someone jammed the frequency then you saw nothing.
Twenty-one seconds after the cameras went blind, Chance saw the door to the main security control room open abruptly and a man come out. With fiery red hair and a beard to match, the man was fully two metres tall. He walked quickly and with an air of authority that did nothing to disguise his fury.
Pausing only to be sure the roulette wheel hadn’t stopped at seven, Chance followed the red-haired man. He got as far as the first turn of the staircase leading up into the main hotel. Here there was a door marked “Staff Only”. The man keyed a code into a pad beside the door and pushed through. Chance counted to four before he heard the sound of another door banging shut.
Chance pressed the button on the device again, turning it off. He had what he needed – for now. Ignoring the security-locked door, he continued up the steps to the next landing, and waited. A few minutes later, the red-haired giant emerged again, this time with another man.
“The systems are back online now,” the other man was saying. “I’m sure it’s just a glitch. It can’t be deliberate, Mr Bannock.”
Chance started down the stairs again, following just close enough to overhear.
“Let’s not take the risk,” the big man said. He had a thick Scottish accent, rolling the ‘r’ of “risk” angrily. “If we lose the property now, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“He’s quite safe where you put him,” the smaller man said. “No pun intended.”
Bannock grinned, his beard parting to reveal yellowed teeth.
Chance headed back to the roulette table and lost some more money. After twenty minutes, he pressed the button on the jamming device again and started to count. This time it was eight seconds. That was what Chance expected – they’d be quicker now, thinking it wasn’t a one-off technical hitch. But if it continued…
The third time Chance only jammed the cameras for a few seconds before putting them back online. The control-room door remained closed. The fourth time it was over a minute before Bannock emerged, and Chance immediately turned off the jammer again. He watched with satisfaction as a man in a dark suit chased after Bannock and was growled at for his trouble. Yes, Chance thought, that should be enough. Next time the security systems packed up they’d be sure it was a glitch, not deliberate sabotage. He made his way casually back to the main staircase.
Chance turned on the landing, heading past the Staff Only door. As he turned, he again activated the jammer and immediately returned to the number pad by the door. He’d seen Bannock – angry and therefore careless – key in a code. 5619. The door clicked open and Chance was through.
He checked quickly for cameras and saw one covering the door. He moved out of its range and turned off the jammer. Give them a minute to shout at each other, then he would kill the cameras again. In the mean time, he looked along the dimly-lit corridor, working out which door Bannock had slammed earlier.
There was only one real contender – just four seconds walk along the corridor. Chance turned the jammer back on, marched up to the door and knocked on it loudly.
“Come on, come on,” he growled in his best approximation of an angry Scottish accent.
The door started to open. Chance kicked it as hard as he could. The door flew back, catching the man holding it a nasty crack on the chin. He fell backwards with a cry and lay still on the floor.
A second man was getting to his feet from an armchair in front of a large dark wood desk. His hand was inside his jacket pocket. But before he could draw his gun, Chance was across the room and swatted the man with his briefcase. There was an unpleasant crunch of bone and the man fell to the floor.
Chance looked round the room. But there was no one else there. He swore. This had to be the room – the presence of the guards confirmed it. Had they moved the ‘property’?
He had another minute, perhaps two at most. He couldn’t turn off the jammer again as there were sure to be cameras in this room – it looked like the manager’s office. Plush carpet, big desk, panelled walls, and a large abstract painting that reached almost from floor to ceiling and which you could bet concealed a big safe.
Safe.
Chance pulled the frame of the painting. It swung back and revealed a solid metal door. Probably the most secure safe in this part of the world, Chance thought. And he had at most a minute.
It took him forty-five seconds, with his ear pressed to an upturned glass from the desk as he listened for the click of the tumblers. Then the last one clicked into place and Chance swung open the heavy reinforced steel door.
A small frightened man with thinning grey hair stared out of the dark safe, blinking through small, round, pebble-lensed glasses.
Chance opened the briefcase and the man cowered away, back into the safe.
“It’s OK,” Chance told him. “Ardman sent me. I’m here to help you, not kill you. Now…” He pulled out the suit, the wig and the false beard. “You’ve got about twenty seconds to get these on.”
An unremarkable man of about forty walked nonchalantly out of the casino and down the steps towards a waiting car. With him was an older, smaller man who seemed nervous. Whereas the younger man was clean-shaven, the older man had a mass of dark curly hair and a bushy beard that almost completely concealed his features.
The first man paused to hand a couple of casino chips to the doorman and share a quick joke about easy money. The doorman wasn’t to know the chips had been in the casino safe just a minute earlier. The bearded man seemed impatient to be on his way.