Chapter 27
The bureau chartered a small aircraft. It was surprisingly quiet inside, after Chun’s experience with military and commercial transport. There was seating for eight, with plenty of legroom. There were four seats in the front of the cabin, arranged around a table so that people could work together, or play games while they travelled.
“A Bureau of Investigation agent saw Samuel Archibald in The Atrium Casino two days ago,” Halloway said. “We think he’s chosen this island because extradition is beyond tricky.”
“What about Heyerdahl?” Annabeth’s face bore a playful sneer.
“No idea,” Halloway said. “Archibald is still alive, so they’re probably still working together.”
“Plan of attack?” Annabeth leaned back in her seat.
“We need to find him. After that we can call in and figure out what to do next, based on his location and capabilities.”
“How long do we have?” Chun shot a sideways glace at Annabeth.
“At least a couple of weeks,” Halloway said. “He’s a pretty important fugitive.”
“What should I do when we get there?” Chun focused back on Halloway, trying not to think about how he was already trapped in a metal box with a nephilim.
“You’ll stick with me,” Halloway said. “I’m important. You’re my bodyguard. Annabeth knows the ropes, and she’s tougher than nails, so she can float.”
“Float?” Chun wasn’t aware there was going to be a water element of the mission.
“Move around freely,” Annabeth said.
Chun nodded. “What if Archibald sees me?”
Halloway smiled at him. “The idea is for you to see him first. Jhon says you’re good at anticipating trouble, and you’re experienced at fighting nephilim and whatever magical capabilities Archibald has along. Annabeth is here because she has the best eyesight on the planet, and she’s absolutely indispensable in a fight. I’m here because you don’t know how to move around in the world yet.”
“Don’t let Heyerdahl corner you,” Chun said to Annabeth. “He is probably stronger than you are, and he may also be faster.”
Annabeth nodded. “If he chases me, I’m leading him straight back to you. We’ll fight him together.”
“Any advice for me?” Halloway swallowed, it didn’t seem to Chun like he had prior experience facing a nephilim.
“Be very cautious,” Chun said. “Don’t try to be fancy. Get your sidearm out and shoot him. Expect him to move quickly, so unless he is very close, you will have to reacquire him with each shot. If he falls, don’t trust it. Keep shooting him until he starts to stink.”
Halloway blew out a lungful of air and nodded.
* * *
Marin was a small island nation a little over two hundred miles southwest of Solomon. The capitol was Davos, a city of wealth wedged in with poverty under the bright lights of casinos.
Marin’s airport was small compared to the capital airport, but even though the hour was late the place was packed. Annabeth cut a path through the crowds, earning dirty looks here and there. Halloway and Chun followed her.
She got them a cab, and they went to a hotel and casino called The Atrium. The entrance gave the establishment its name. They walked into a space filled with trees, bushes, water splashing over rocks. Chun was in love.
“Come on, Chun,” Annabeth said. He turned around and she threw her bag at him, then grabbed Halloway’s and threw that at him too.
“What’s that for?” Halloway cocked an eyebrow.
“You said he’s your security, so make him work,” Annabeth said.
Chun considered telling her that security guards need to have their hands free, then decided they were getting along better than he had ever expected. He picked up the bags and followed.
The Atrium turned out to be a lie. The entrance looked like paradise, but inside it was gloomy, the dominant color was red, and clouds of smoke meant patrons could not see the far side of the massive rooms.
“This is the gate to hell,” Chun said to himself.
“I know,” a strange lady next to him gushed. “Isn’t it fantastic?”
Halloway put them in a pair of suites with an adjoining door. The suite was properly sized for an emperor, and many of the furnishings glittered brightly, but Chun knew the Son of Heaven would have insisted on higher quality. It was, nevertheless, extravagant.
Annabeth came through the doorway into their suite. “What gives with the rooms, Jacob? I thought the bureau preferred we sleep in the car.”
“Jhon’s orders,” Halloway said. “He thinks this lead is worth an investment, and he gave me a corresponding budget.” He opened his suitcase and produced a stack of bills, then counted out a thousand for Chun and a thousand for Annabeth.
“Here’s your fun money. Budget it out to last you for two weeks. We need to play the games, or we’ll stand out.”
Annabeth thumbed through the stack of bills. “What happens to this when we go home?”
Halloway shrugged. “None of us are professional gamblers, so we expect you to lose it. I guess that means when we go home you can keep any that’s left over.”
Annabeth turned to Chun. “Bet you a thousand I leave with more than you.”
Chun frowned at her. “You know the games, and I do not.”
“What kind of wizard are you? Cheat.”
Halloway waved at her to stop. “I have one objective I haven’t mentioned yet. It’s to keep you two from killing each other. So, here’s the deal--no competitions. The only exception is small games that I referee.”
“That’s no fun,” Annabeth said.
“Tough,” Halloway said. “I want you focused on finding Archibald and Heyerdahl, or evidence of their passing. If you’re out there trying to build up your bank, you’re going to get distracted. The bureau is not paying you to make money here, we’re paying you to lose money and blend in.”
* * *
Halloway was a decent gambler. Chun stood two paces behind his right shoulder and watched the game. It was called Blind. The dealer dealt three cards to each player. It cost five dollars to buy in. If you were in, you got a fourth card. It cost another five to stay in, which earned you a fifth card. You could then ask the dealer for additional cards. If your hand was weak, you replaced several. If it was strong, you might not replace any. Each player would add something to the pot when they decided how many cards to exchange. If you bet and lost, then you had less money to bet on following hands. If you won, you got the pot. The goal was to accumulate all of the money at the table.
A key part of Blind was deciding whether an opponent was bluffing. Some people were difficult to read because they did not care whether they won or lost. Some were easy to read because they cared far too much. Halloway did a good job, but after an hour Chun figured he knew enough to outperform his boss.
After two hours Halloway got up, thanked the players, and led Chun around the casino.
“That’s Leaves. You get two cards, and then make bets on the total you will have with two more cards. It’s fun to play when you’re relaxing with friends, and no one cares who wins. It’s all luck. Don’t bet money on it.”
They stopped at one of the casino’s restaurants. Halloway had a large steak with mushrooms and onions. Chun had two steaks, then lobster, and tuna, plus bread, salad, soup, and a marvelous pie with a frothy topping that had been browned.
“Holy shit,” Halloway said. “How can you walk after all of that?”
“If you wish to be strong, eat big, then play big,” Chun said.
* * *
In the morning they drove to The Palace, where Halloway taught Chun to play billiards. It was a perfect game--he could read the angles and predict the outcomes far better than Halloway. The boss let him play some of the other patrons for money, but after an hour they refused to bet against him.
“How much do you have now?” Halloway smirked as the last loser walked off.
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Chun added the money he had taken from pimps to his gambling winnings. “I have twenty-four hundred.”
“Note to self. Do not gamble against Chun,” Halloway said. “Tell me what you’ve seen so far.”
“That table over there, where they roll the marble around in a circle, is rigged. The old man playing cards over there is getting signals from the bartender. This pretty young lady with the big purse coming toward us is a pickpocket. I have not seen any sign of our targets yet.”
“Morning, boys,” the girl said.
“Morning, ma’am,” Halloway said.
“Buy a girl a drink?” She took his arm and lifted his wallet.
“No, thank you,” Halloway said. “I’m waiting for my wife.”
“Ah, you’re such a good boy.” She turned to Chun. “How about you, Handsome?”
“Of course,” Chun said. He picked a pen from his pocket and swung it back and forth like a pendulum while he spun out a thread of breath and twined it into hers.
“You’re very pretty, and so good at your job. You need a break. Relax. Breathe deep. You deserve it.”
Her eyes glassed over, and she rested against his side with a dreamy smile.
“Let’s go for a walk. It’s so nice outside.”
“Okay, Handsome.”
Chun walked the lady outside and Halloway followed them, with wide-eyed incredulity. They sat down on a bench where they could see the ocean in the distance.
“It’s not safe out here,” Chun said. “Your money will be much safer if you have me hold it for you.”
“Okay.”
She had a few bills in her top, a few in each shoe, a couple of hundred in the waistband of her unders. In her purse there was a roll of bills three inches thick, and eight wallets she hadn’t emptied yet provided more. Chun tucked all of the money into his pockets, except for Halloway’s, whose eyes got big when Chun handed his wallet back to him.
“Thank you for a lovely time, ma’am. You forgot your purse inside, at the bar.”
She didn’t even look down at her purse. “I did?”
“Yes. You should go get it.”
“That’s a good idea.” She stood up.
“When you find your purse, you will forget everything that happened here.”
“Okay.”
Chun tucked her purse into the crook of her elbow. “Take this with you. You don’t want to forget it.”
“Thank you.” She walked back inside.
Chun turned toward the next casino and started walking.
“Are you shitting me?” Halloway said. “How did she get my wallet?”
“My fingers are too fat to demonstrate, but when she took your arm, she reached inside your coat pocket with the other hand and lifted it between her first two fingers,” Chun said.
“You just got her to give you everything, and then walk back inside to find a purse she was already carrying.” Halloway shook his head.
Chun grinned. “When she gets to the bar she’ll start looking around. Eventually someone will ask what she’s doing, and she’ll tell them she’s looking for her purse. When they tell her she already has it the trance will break. She won’t remember meeting us or anything between meeting us and finding her purse.”
“Freak me out,” Halloway said. “Can you do that to anyone?”
“No. Nephilim are immune, and so are wizards of sufficient skill.”
“What does ‘sufficient skill’ mean?”
“Jhon Bonga might be able to resist, if I warned him before I attacked.”
Halloway frowned at him. “Aren’t you a good deal stronger than Jhon?”
“Yes, but in this arena, defense is much easier than offense.”
They reached the next casino, and Halloway looked down the road. “Want to check out the ponies instead?”
The ponies turned out to be horses. Chun loved horses. Halloway told him to bet on Tip Toe, and how much. Chun looked at the competitors, then bet five hundred on Cold Fury to win.
“Was that luck?”
“No. I will make mistakes, but I have spent a good deal of time around horses.”
“You see Archibald anywhere?”
“No.”
“Let’s bet on another race. Then we can go check the dog track.”
The next group had three that Chun thought were excellent choices.
“So, you think it could be any of these three?” Halloway scanned the horse lineup from the stands.
“Yes.”
“So, you feel pretty confident that Lucky Silver will be in the top three?”
“Yes.”
Halloway checked the odds. “Lucky Silver is four to one to place. We could bet on a win, but if you’re not sure, this seems safer.”
“Safe is better,” Chun said.
Both of them placed five-hundred-dollar bets on Lucky Silver to place. Bullet came up lame twenty yards out of the gate, and Gamble pushed the leaders harder than Chun expected. Ultimately Lucky Silver took second by a nose.
They decided to walk to the dog track, since it was less than two miles away. They weren’t the only people with that idea. Foot traffic toward the dog track was so heavy that cars had difficulty.
“Bandits,” Chun said.
Halloway glanced around without moving his head, then kicked a rock, giving himself an excuse to turn enough to see over his shoulder. “I don’t see anyone.”
They crossed an alley, and eight young men separated themselves from the crowd and pushed them into the shadows.
“Money,” said a handsome youngster with brown hair and piercing green eyes.
Knives came out all around. “Money,” the youngster repeated.
Chun got his wallet out and fumbled it, then bent to pick it up. When he straightened, he had his .454 backup in his hand. Halloway read the situation perfectly and produced his own sidearm at the same moment. Chun pocketed his wallet, then drew his Hammerly.
“Fuck,” said the handsome kid.
“No,” Chun said. “But we will take your money.” They got thirty-four dollars from the thieves. Chun let Halloway have their money, since he was poor.
The dog track was slightly smaller than the horse track. The building was up against the oval of the track, with room for a few thousand spectators. Like the horse track, oddsmakers maintained chalkboards of data for gamblers.
“How do you feel about dogs?” Halloway had an eager smile.
Chun shrugged. “They’re all very skinny. Stringy. Emergency rations.”
Halloway frowned and wrinkled his lips in disgust. “You eat dogs? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Dogs have no value on a battlefield with thousands of men. Much better to let them eat the dead, then we eat them.”
“That’s revolting.”
“Cannibalism is worse.”
Halloway shook his head to clear it. “Alright. Enough of that. Can you pick a winner or not?”
“Not.”
They went down and watched a race. Chun took care to study the detectors between them and the track. Whoever had made them had not cared about real security. Chun could see them start to light up if he spread his breath toward the track, but organized threads went between them without reaction.
When they brought the next group out, he examined each dog, then turned and looked at the odds. He had picked the same favorite as the odds makers. Chun made a guess on which dog could survive some of his help, then went to place a bet.
“How much can I wager?”
“Limit’s five thousand.”
“Five thousand on Cat’s Meow,” Chun said.
The guy behind the counter looked at the odds, then at Chun. “Whatever buddy.” He scooped up the money and dropped it into the collection box, then handed Chun a ticket.
“You sure about this?” Halloway frowned as his gaze moved up and down the contenders.
“Reasonably.”
Halloway bet five hundred on Cat’s Meow.
They went to watch the race. Chun spun out a thread of breath, stretching down to the starting gate, where he wound his thread in with the dog’s breath and gave her a huge surge of adrenaline. The odds were sixteen to one.
Halloway leapt out his seat and cheered as the race ended. “Holy shit. Are you sure you don’t want to bet on a few more races?”
“They are watching us now. If we win again, there will be trouble,” Chun said.