hair, an angled face and whiskey-colored eyes. She could smell blood, see it in his play, the faltering steps of a confused and tiring animal.
She knew her adversary was a member of a sophisticated cheating crew, but tonight he was freelancing.
The owner of this house was a friend of hers and knew something was going on between her and the man she was now heads-up with. The man was an addicted gambler who believed that, with or without cheating, he could take down anyone, especially a woman.
Beth knew a lot more about him than she had told her friend. She knew he needed a big score to service his debts.
She’d set the bait and her prey was ready to walk into the trap. Just you and me, babe.
She gave him a stone-cold stare and worked her lip.
The buy-in for this winner-take-all game had been fifty thousand. The quarter-mil take would pay the bills for a long time, but Beth had another use for her money.
She had two income streams, both intermittent. Playing cards for herself, and getting paid to bust cheating crews on behalf of those who’d been taken by them. But this particular game was strictly personal.
The man she was about to crush belonged to one of the largest and most sophisticated cheating crews working the international circuit, a crew that had started twenty years ago in Vegas. The one her father had once belonged to before he was murdered and dumped in a garbage bin sixteen years ago.
The crew was directed and financed by a secret backer who was either her father’s killer, or knew that killer’s identity. To find out who the backer was she had to flip one of his people. She’d chosen carefully.
She knew the one she’d chosen as the weak link was mortgaged to the hilt, his sources tapped out and in deep hock to loan sharks. He’d borrowed heavily for this last stand and she was going to snatch the prize away from him.
Once she had him at her mercy, she’d make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
He did as she expected and came over the top of her bet with an all-in push. If she followed him in and won, it would be over.
A dog without tricks, she thought, as she followed his all-in, much to his surprise and chagrin.
When she laid down her set, she said, “You’re right, I do have a pair of fours, and one extra.”
He was stunned. “You limped in, then slow-played when you had them from the get-go?” He seemed amazed and angered that someone would do that.
“It’s called a winning tactic.”
He stared at her cards, his face twisted in bitter fury mixed with that sick feeling all gamblers know so well. The shock of falling into total ruin.
“I’ve had crap all damn day,” he protested, throwing his cards across the table.
“Maybe it’s not the cards,” she said. “Maybe it’s how you play them.”
She could see the rage in his eyes. He wanted to lunge across the table and grab her by the throat, but the other men in the room were her friends on the poker circuit, not his. He continued venting his anger verbally.
At that moment Beth got yet another buzz from her PDA, at least the fifth or sixth since the game had started. She’d been ignoring the outside world’s attempts to contact her, but now that the game was over she reached in her black shoulder bag, glanced at the message and swore under her breath.
It was the last person on earth she wanted a message from right now—Delphi, her contact with Oracle.
She interrupted her opponent’s verbal tirade. “Sorry, I’ll have to catch your trash talk on another day.”
In the wake of his swearing and the laughter from the other men at the table, Beth slipped out through the glass doors onto the balcony.
She read and reread the text message with consternation and disbelief. This was incredibly bad timing. She was being mission-tasked and Delphi wanted her at the Oracle town house in Virginia ASAP. In the past, she’d been assigned missions that were analysis-based, math and statistics being her area of expertise. This sounded very different. And agents were almost never summoned to the Virginia office.
Why now? Why today?
Using her thumbs like little pistons, she sent a message back requesting a replacement because she was involved in her own urgent business. She could have called Delphi and spoken to her, but not here.
A negative reply returned instantly. Code red. That meant critical and it meant now.
For the first time in her career, Bethany seriously considered the ramifications of refusing an assignment.
She knew if she was working directly for the Feds, NSA or CIA the problem would have been simple. Take the assignment or resign.
But Oracle agents worked for an intelligence agency that existed without mandate or congressional oversight. It didn’t show up on any traditional radar, and Beth wasn’t sure what the protocol was for refusing a mission.
I’m not going to Virginia, she thought. Not now. I’ll call in later, when I’m home. She decided that if Allison Gracelyn was available, she’d talk to her. She’d understand. Allison worked with Oracle, too, and she was the one person who could get Bethany released from the assignment.
She went back inside. The men were drinking cognac and smoking cigars, except for her nemesis. He had made a hasty and bitter departure. She’d find him later with her proposition.
“Some of us are better losers than others,” Manny Kirk, the owner of the house and a longtime friend said.
She nodded. “That’s because you, unlike our friend, know you’ll have a chance to get your money back.”
The men laughed.
She added, “I’d love to stay and party, but I have some business that needs immediate attention.”
There were a dozen or so “poker houses” owned by these guys and their friends scattered around Vegas. Games went on day and night. Partying for them wasn’t about drugs and fast women; they were the nerds of the party world and preferred playing pool, video games and more poker on the Internet. These young hotshots in this new world of poker had the good life by the tail.
“I guess you want the money,” Manny said.
She smiled. “That’s why we live and breathe, is it not?”
In the end, unlike the big TV games where scantily clad casino girls brought out trays of money, this was much more subdued.
While the money was being retrieved from a safe, she called Curtis Sault, a bodyguard she employed whenever she was in a big game in Vegas. He’d dropped her off the previous day and now she was in need of a fast exit. The ex-Army Ranger turned professional bodyguard had been told, if she won, he’d be in for a substantial bonus.
She transferred the quarter mil to an expandable travel bag, thanked her host and the other players and then left. With the bag of loot slung over one shoulder, her purse over the other, she felt a little like a happy bank robber.
It was fully dark now when she spotted Curtis Sault roaring up the road in his vintage ’58 Corvette. He pulled over the tricked-out red beauty and she dropped the bag on the floorboard and jumped in, settling in the red leather seat with its cool chrome trim. The bag sat between her feet.
Curtis did a one-eighty and they headed down the mountain. He glanced over at the bag. “Is that full of dirty laundry, or should I be congratulating you?”
“You should be smiling from ear to ear ’cause I just paid for your vacation in Costa Rica and then some.”
“I’m liking the sound of that. You know what amazes me?”
“What?”
“These guys you play poker with don’t get robbed, all the money they