Carpathian (37 page)

As the helicopters continued to spool up their twin engines, Alice turned and watched the mountain high above her knowing her answers were there, in the darkness of Patinas.

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD HOTEL AND RESORT CASINO, DACIAN HOT SPRINGS, ROMANIA

Jack and Sarah walked the spaces between the three sprawling buildings. The hotel, the casino, and the Enviro Dome—which Jack thought was a bit of overkill—were all impressively designed. Sarah had been most interested in the mud baths and the bubbling waters of the open hot springs. She leaned closer to one of the pools of water and touched the surface with her fingers.

“Jack, if this spring is any indication of the size and flow of the natural aqueduct that allows the water to flow this far from its source and still maintain the temperature as it is now, this area may have a serious seismic problem. And I do mean a significant one.”

“I’m not following,” Jack said as he too touched the extremely hot spring water as it bubbled before him.

“The temperature should have cooled far more than this in its passage from under the ground, or possibly even from as far away as the mountains that look down on this monstrosity. If this water is any indication of the thermal variance in this region we could be looking at a significant seismological event in the very near future.”

“In English, short stuff.”

“Jack, the ground this resort sits on is seismically active. There is significant thermal power building up from somewhere, and I bet it’s closer than these fools think. I suspect it’s where Alice’s pass is located. The direct line of flow is about right.”

“You mean this could all just blow up?” he asked as he looked around at a few of the guests as they admired the plant life that had been collected for the dome. “Come on, really?”

Sarah looked around and saw the bubbling mud and a look came to her face that Jack didn’t like.

“I mean, there would have to be some sort of warning, earthquakes and the like, right?”

Sarah looked at Collins with a raised left brow, a habit derived from Jack himself over the years and one that was becoming increasingly irritating.

“I know of a mountain that showed no significant activity for a 123-year sleep. There was almost no warning—no tremors or quakes, just a jump in mean temperature. Eleven days later the seismic activity started and on that day, May 18, 1980, the mountain exploded.”

Jack nodded his head in understanding. “Mount St. Helens?”

“Yes, and that mountain also had no significant activity almost until the day it was shattered into a million pieces. We could have the same thing building up here.”

“But in Romania? There are no volcanoes in this region.”

Sarah smiled at Jack’s naïveté. “My dear Colonel, there are over 692 dormant volcanoes in Eastern Europe alone. And remember, Italy, one of the most active regions in the world, is not that far away. Believe me, Jack, this place could blow and wipe this area clean of everything.”

Collins looked around the giant and very much gaudy dome structure.

“That may not be so bad,” he said as he took Sarah by the elbow and started walking toward the large escalator.

“What do you say we skip the escalator ride and get to bed and start fresh in the morning? You have to collate what you’ve seen here and I have to start running some names and faces through Europa. Maybe we can start marking some of the antiquities buyers anyway. We can start a file on every one we can get a real name for. It will solve a lot of problems in the future when it’s time to bring some of these thieving bastards down or at least to justice.”

“You mean we have to sleep in separate rooms tonight?” she asked with a false scowl.

“Knock it off, Lieutenant. You’ve had your fun for this trip.” He smiled and then relaxed. “I’ll tell you what, since you took advantage of your colonel earlier tonight, how about something to eat and then a nightcap?”

Sarah made a face at the trade of lovemaking for food and a drink, but she stopped and looked at Jack with her sad eyes.

“You know Alice is right.”

“Yeah, short stuff, what’s she right about?”

Sarah smiled up at Collins.

“You are a prick sometimes.”

“Ouch!”

*   *   *

Jason Ryan had his short black hair combed straight back and was shiny with oil. He was resplendent in his navy blue sport coat with a gold shirt opened at the collar with as many gold chains as his neck could bear. The necklaces and other jewelry had been liberated from some of the finest collections at the Event Group complex. If Ryan underwent close scrutiny—which his training told him he had been receiving since he and Pete arrived inside the casino—his wares would hold up under close examination. The Eye of Ra pendant on his lapel should attract one of the bigger fishes swimming around the casino. As for Pete Golding, Ryan wished he would stop fiddling with his cravat.

“Why do I get the strange clothing?” the computer genius asked as he tugged on the irritating cravat.

Ryan paused by the row of blackjack tables that stretched far into the distance of the casino. He noticed that only a quarter of the tables were occupied with guests. The others had their dealers standing by with hands folded neatly in front awaiting the spoiled guests of Dmitri Zallas. Ryan decided that someone enjoyed throwing money away by overstaffing.

“Look, Pete, the suggested clothing for you came from your own computer system—are you going to stand there and tell me that Europa was wrong about matching your style to what she knows of gangster fashion?”

Pete stopped adjusting the cravat and looked at Ryan. “Europa is never wrong, Mr. Ryan,” Pete said and then looked down at his green nylon knit suit with the yellow shirt and even yellower cravat. “But this time she’s a little short on being right.”

Ryan smiled at Pete’s obvious consternation that his Marilyn Monroe–voiced computer had screwed him.

“Can I interest you gentleman in some champagne?” came a voice from behind the two.

When Ryan turned he saw the same woman he had seen when they checked into the hotel. She stood smiling with a clipboard pressed to her chest and a waitress standing to her left. The young Romanian girl held a tray of champagne glasses perfectly balanced with an equally charming smile etched on her face. Through Ryan’s experience with almost every sort of woman in the world he could see that neither of the two could stand being in the casino with the current clientele. The taller woman was dressed in a black suit that showed off her long legs. Ryan could not help but stare at her.

With his current state of dress and attire, Ryan didn’t realize that his normal charm had to be triple its normal strength to cover for the slicked-back hair and the well-trimmed three-day-old beard. When he saw a small hint of disgust on the dark-haired woman’s face he almost went into panic mode and explained that this wasn’t really him at all, that he dresses normal, then he realized he couldn’t say anything because this woman was more than likely in on whatever deviltry was happening in the well-camouflaged den of thieves.

Pete Golding salvaged the situation by reaching over and removing two glasses from the tray with a smile and a nod of his head to the young waitress. He nudged Ryan until the commander reached for his glass without taking his eyes off the general manager, which her gold-plated tag on her breast pocket announced. The woman became uncomfortable when Ryan’s gaze lingered on the nametag a moment longer than was necessary. She adjusted the clipboard to cover her chest area.

“Thank you very much,” Pete said as he downed the champagne in one large swallow and then watched the tension develop between the woman and Ryan.

“Do you gentlemen require chips for the table games?” she asked just to see if the small man with the ridiculous gold chains and rings could speak or if his only verbal skills were grunting and pounding his chest like most of the other Neanderthals at the resort.

“Uh, no thank you,” Ryan finally managed to say as he handed over the untouched champagne to Pete, who switched hands with his empty glass and then downed Ryan’s offering. Jason leaned into Pete. “Why don’t you go track that waitress down and get another, Doc,” he whispered conspiratorially to his Don Knotts attired teammate.

Pete looked up and saw that the woman looked uncomfortable standing and speaking with what looked like an evil little drug lord. Golding leaned back.

“Perhaps we should be moving along.”

Ryan smiled and turned the computer whiz around and shoved him off in the direction of the young waitress who was serving champagne to several hard-looking men sitting at a blackjack table smoking large cigars. Ryan took an immediate dislike to the men but pushed them and Golding from his mind as he turned to face the general manager once more.

“Now where were we?” he asked with his most charming “I’m only a little ole naval aviator” look on his face. The sad puppy dog eyes were the kicker.

“You were about to go and join your friend—it seems he may have been a little jealous of your attention toward me.” She smiled and winked and then turned and walked away.

Ryan took a moment to reflect on her comment and then it hit him right between the eyes. He realized as he turned and closely examined the way Doc Golding was standing with a glass of champagne halfway to his mouth and the way he was crooking his arm as he did so. Ryan’s eyes widened when he realized the general manager of the resort, one of the best-looking women he had laid eyes on in quite a while, thought he was gay and that he and Pete Golding were together for the weekend. Ryan didn’t know if he should run to his room at that moment and kill himself or blow his cover immediately and confess his righteousness to the woman and hope for the best. If it had been a man assuming he was gay, that would have been fine with Ryan because he had nothing against that lifestyle except thinking that the lifestyle was flawed because it excluded the most important assets in the known world—women.

“Hey, hey, whoa there,” he said as he chased after Gina Louvinski to explain how his being gay was a flat-out scientific impossibility. Ryan quickly caught up with the general manager, who was busy perusing the casino floor.

“Hi again,” he said when he caught her. Gina rolled her eyes but kept the smile in place for as long as she could bear it. “I think you may have the wrong impression of me,” he said as he stopped in front of her and stepped from one foot to the other as he tried to keep her attention. She looked at his chains and his open collar and nodded her head. “Uh, I’m not gay in any shape, form, or fashion,” he said with a smile that only elicited a raised brow from Gina. “Really. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Mr.—?”

“Ryan, name’s Ryan,” he said like a schoolboy telling the hall monitor his name.

She made a show of looking on her extensive guest list and as she did Ryan realized he had really chased this woman down to explain to her, not that he wasn’t gay, but that he wasn’t like these other men. He would rather be gay than have her think he was one of the bad guys.

“Mr. Ryan, you don’t seem to be on my guest list,” she said as she ran her manicured nail down the list, checking once again. “You are American?” she asked when she looked up into Ryan’s smiling face.

“Oh,” Ryan said as he felt the color drain from his face. “Uh.” He nodded his head toward Pete, who was speaking with the young waitress who looked to be explaining the game of blackjack to the computer expert. “My assistant is so used to me traveling using a false name that I forget sometimes not to use it.”

“So, what is your real name?” she asked while out of the corner of her eye she saw trouble brewing. The young waitress this man’s companion was speaking to was being touched and prodded by the men at the blackjack table. Pete Golding looked uncomfortable as he raised a finger and wagged it at the two Polish and two Romanian thugs as if he were a teacher admonishing a bad student. Ryan didn’t catch the eye movement or realize the Doc was in over his head.

“Uh, Mendenhall,” Ryan said as he forgot the cover name he had been issued as this woman’s eyes erased all pertinent information from his frontal lobe.

Without looking for the name the woman allowed her full attention to travel to the table where Pete was standing and the young waitress was dodging the probing hands of two of the men.

“Thank you, Mr. Mendenhall … would you excuse me?” she said and then turned and left Jason standing and wondering how he had lost his magical charm with women on the flight over here. He shook his head as he watched the woman move with purpose toward the gaming tables.

“Gentlemen, our waitresses are quite busy and cannot linger with one table too long,” Gina said to the thugs groping the young girl.

The man closest to the girl smiled and ran a hand up the girl’s thigh, forcing her to balance her tray of glasses while trying to avoid the touch. Pete saw panic in her eyes. He stepped forward and slapped the man’s hands away. That caught everyone’s attention from several tables around. Across the aisle Jason rolled his eyes and knew there was trouble right here in River City.

“That’s not acceptable, mister,” Pete said as he straightened up and realized what he had just done as the large man in the black clothing stood up from his chair at the table. The burly brute stepped into the girl, brushing her aside and confronted Pete.

It seemed time was standing still for Golding as the bearded man took him by the cravat he hated. The resort’s general manager braved getting between the two guests. When she did the other three men stood and started forward. The larger brute let go of Pete and then reached out and pulled the clipboard from Gina’s hands and ostentatiously dropped it to the carpeted floor. His smile widened as he reached out and roughly handled her left breast just under the black suit jacket she wore.

Pete’s eyes widened in shock at the way these men were acting. He had never been witness to anything so blatantly boorish. Pete slapped at the man’s hand again, and in response the man took Golding by the throat and started pushing him backward.

Gina Louvinski panicked and wanted to call for her security but all she saw around the casino were Zallas’s men, who not only weren’t moving toward the ruckus but were watching with humorous curiosity. Knowing she was on her own, Gina reached out and took the man’s large hand and tried to force it from Pete’s throat. A second man came around and wrapped his thick arms around the general manager and lifted her away.