The Scam (12 page)

“What do you think of my place?” Lucie asked Nick.

“It's terrific,” Nick said and kissed her on the cheek. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Lucie said, beaming with pride. “When this building opened, over two thousand prospective buyers showed up but I was one of only sixty people who scored a place.”

“You were lucky,” he said.

“Screw luck,” she said. “I hacked into the developer's computer and put myself at the top of the list.”

Lucie turned to a tiny desk that held her laptop computer and two hard drives.

“The identity for Shane Blackmore is all set if Trace's people start snooping. He's listed in Canadian government databases—birth records, tax rolls, DMV, et cetera,” Lucie said. “I've also planted news stories that mention him in the
Toronto Star
and
The Vancouver Sun
archives. Lou Ould-Abdallah's identity was much easier to create, since he really is a Somali pirate.”

“Excellent work,” Nick said. “As usual.”

“Do you create all of Nick's false identities, forged passports, and phony credit cards?” Kate asked.

“I create the identities and accounts in the necessary databases, but I don't do the physical forgeries,” Lucie said. “I subcontract that out.”

“There's no better place than Hong Kong to get a high-quality knockoff,” Nick said, “whether it's a bootleg Hermès bag or a false passport.”

“He's right,” Lucie said. “This dress is fake Prada. Nick doesn't pay me enough to get the real thing.”

“I've paid you enough to get this apartment,” he said.

“But now I'm broke,” she said. “I may have to go back to picking pockets.”

“That's how Lucie and I met,” Nick said. “She picked my pocket on the street in Lan Kwai Fong, cloned my identity, and emptied out my bank account within the hour. She was only fifteen.”

“It also only took Nick an hour to find me,” Lucie said. “I was living in a homemade shelter under an overpass in the Central District and tapping into phone lines with a stolen laptop. Instead of having me thrown in jail, he sent me to boarding school.”

“She obviously had a natural gift for larceny and technology,” Nick said. “All she was missing to succeed was a real education. Now she works in computer services for an international bank.”

“That's my menial day job,” Lucie said. “The legitimate front for my real profession, which is keeping Nicolas Fox out of jail. Of course, that's been a lot easier since you stopped chasing him.”

Kate felt her throat go dry. “You know who I am?”

“Of course I do, FBI Special Agent Kate O'Hare. It would be hard to create all of those false identities for you if I didn't know your real one.”

It was late when Kate and Nick left Lucie and returned to their hotel. Kate staggered into her eighteenth-floor suite, not noticing the amazing view or the lacquered tea blossoms etched on the wall, or the high-tech tablet that controlled everything in the room, or the low-tech nail dryer built into the dresser. She was exhausted and all she saw was the bed. She stripped down to a T-shirt and panties, slipped between the perfectly ironed sheets, and thought about what a different world China was from her own, and how much she missed the comfort of having a loaded Glock under her pillow.

The next morning, before taking the elevator up to the Peninsula helipad, Nick handed out tiny flesh-colored earbud radio transmitters/receivers to Kate, Boyd, and Billy Dee.

“We'll wear these at all times so we can be in constant, simultaneous contact. They're practically invisible.”

Nick was wearing a trim-fit gray Armani silk and wool sport coat, white Hermès slim dress shirt, and Dsquared2 jeans. Kate was in a sleeveless Givenchy black satin top with a very deep V-neck that pretty much guaranteed every man she faced would be distracted by her cleavage. That was the intention. Anything that might distract a possible adversary, even for a split second, was an advantage that she might need. Her knee-length skirt with a ruffled tiered overlay was loose enough to allow her plenty of flexibility for a spin kick, which is what she looked for in a dress. Her silver-studded Yves Saint Laurent calfskin ballerina flats were equally practical, being fancy shoes with pointed toes, while still maintaining the capability to haul ass, if the need should arise.

The team slipped the earbuds into their ears and took the elevator up to the China Clipper lounge. They passed quickly through and outside to the helipad, where a white-suited, white-gloved valet stowed their luggage and ushered them into the waiting helicopter for their fifteen-minute ride to Macau.

Billy Dee looked back wistfully at the hotel as the helicopter rose and carried them out over the harbor.

“I'm going to miss that bathroom,” he said.

The helicopter soared westward across the Pearl River Delta. Kate's first glimpse of Macau was the Grand Lisboa hotel and casino, a fifty-three-story tower of gold-tinted glass shaped like the feathered headdress of a showgirl.

Macau encompassed a three-mile peninsula as well as the former islands of Taipa and Coloane, which were now joined together by the Cotai Strip. Three two-mile-long bridges linked the city to Taipa, one of which was arched to resemble the back of a sleeping dragon, its tail on the island and its head resting in front of the Grand Lisboa.

They landed on the helipad atop the Macau Ferry Terminal, breezed through the VIP customs checkpoint, and were met outside by a Rolls-Royce Phantom sent by Côte d'Argent. Nick got up front with the chauffeur and Kate sat in the back, sandwiched between Boyd and Billy Dee for the ten-minute drive to the casino along Avenida da Amizade.

“Macau is over five centuries old,” Nick said, playing tour guide to his junket guests and their eavesdropping driver. “It was built to resemble Lisbon by homesick Portuguese traders. The Vegas casino moguls came much later, and they also wanted to feel at home.”

A twenty-story replica of Evan Trace's Côte d'Argent tower appeared to their right. Directly across the street was Steve Wynn's small-scale copy of his namesake Las Vegas resort. Both properties faced the harbor and Taipa, where the medieval castle-like spires of the Galaxy Macau on the Cotai Strip peeked out beyond the top of Small Taipa Hill.

“That's real interesting, Nick. Is there a Tim Hortons around?” Boyd asked, referring to the ubiquitous Canadian coffee chain. He spoke with a slight lilt in his voice, his attempt at a Canadian accent now that he was in character as Shane Blackmore.

“I don't think so,” Nick said.

“Then it isn't going to feel like home to me,” Boyd said. “If Canadians had settled this place, there'd be a Tim Hortons on every corner, a loon on every dollar, and the Grand Lisboa would be shaped like a golden maple leaf instead of Daffy Duck's ass.”

“Is that what it's supposed to be?” Billy Dee said, craning his neck to look up at it.

“You know Daffy Duck in Somalia?” Boyd asked as they arrived at Côte d'Argent.

“No,” Billy Dee shifted his gaze to Boyd and his eyes turned cold, “but I know an ass when I see one.”

Boyd smiled broadly and wagged a finger at Billy Dee. “That was good, Sheik,” he said. “I think I'm gonna like you.”

The driver pulled up to the Côte d'Argent VIP entrance, and the four of them stepped out of the Rolls-Royce and into the lobby. It was identical to the one in Las Vegas, right down to the ice sculptures and chilly temperature. The slender, long-legged Macanese hostess who approached them wore high heels and a body-hugging black silk
qipao,
a sleeveless one-piece dress with a severe Mandarin collar and a subtle pattern of Chinese symbols.

“I'm Natasha Ling, vice president of guest relations, and I'd like to welcome you to Côte d'Argent,” she said, taking a slight bow in front of them. “I will be seeing to your needs throughout your stay.”

“That's great news,” Boyd said. “What are those drawings on your dress?”

“Chinese lucky charms,” she said.

“Do I rub you to get good luck?” Boyd asked.

“You'll find these same charms incorporated into the décor throughout the property,” Natasha said. “So good luck surrounds you in Côte d'Argent. Rubbing the staff isn't necessary.”

“But it couldn't hurt,” Boyd said, twirling his mustache. “Especially the pretty ones.”

Kate caught Nick's eye and pretended to gag.

Natasha smiled politely and passed out transparent plastic key cards in paper sleeves with room numbers on them. “These are the keys to your harbor-view suites and the express elevators. They also allow you into your private gaming suite on the eighth floor.”

“I thought we'd be higher up,” Boyd said. “The penthouse, maybe.”

“It's a privilege to be on the eighth floor,” Nick said. “Eight is a lucky number that has great power in Chinese culture. It equals prosperity.”

“I hope that means for us,” Boyd said. “And not the casino.”

“We won't find out standing here,” Billy Dee said impatiently. “Let's get to the table and play some cards.”

“This way, please.” Natasha led them through a set of double doors and out into the casino.

The casino floor was filled with hundreds of baccarat tables. Mobs of Chinese men and women crowded around them, cheering and yelling. The gamblers who couldn't find seats were standing, reaching across over the heads of the seated players to place bets. Kate slowed her pace beside one of the tables to peek at a game.

The player who'd been dealt two cards lifted them up very slowly, peeling them up by the edges, as if they were stickers glued to the table. The technique mangled the cards in the process, but the dealer didn't seem to mind, sweeping them into a trash slot at the end of the hand.

“Letting players destroy the cards like that would never fly in Vegas,” Billy Dee said.

“The players aren't as superstitious there,” Natasha said. “Many players here believe the way they reveal the cards has the power to change the numerical value.”

“It didn't work for that guy,” Boyd said.

“He may not be a powerful person,” Natasha said. “I believe truly powerful men make their own luck.”

They continued on across the casino floor toward a bank of elevators, and up to the eighth floor.

D
umah was a big and broad-chested descendent of an Indonesian tribe that, as recently as a hundred years ago, had been feared throughout the South China Sea as headhunters and slave traders. Back then, he would have been a warrior, and his traditional dress would have been a necklace of wild boar teeth and tusks, a battle vest of woven rattan and water buffalo bone, and a rigid two-foot-long penis sheath with a sharp pointed end.

Instead, as a security operative for Côte d'Argent, he wore a gray Dolce & Gabbana suit, a Patek Philippe gold watch, a radio transmitter in his ear, and nothing sheathing his penis but bikini briefs. His forefathers would have been deeply ashamed to see him like this.

Nevertheless, Dumah was still a warrior, of sorts. He'd never lopped off a head or traded a slave, but he'd made his living throughout Asia on his muscles, menace, and willingness to commit acts of extreme violence to protect whomever hired him. He'd worked for corporate executives, government officials, Triad mobsters, and, for a short time, a U.S. investment banker who'd embezzled a half billion dollars and fled to a tiny Indonesian island, safe from extradition.

That last job hadn't ended well. It started to go bad the instant a spoiled American heiress and her servants showed up in a bullet-riddled yacht, leading the Bugis pirates who'd attacked them right to the island. The pirates took all the Americans hostage, but they let Dumah go unharmed. He'd bounced around Asia for a few months after that, before ending up as a security guard at Côte d'Argent. It was pure fate that he happened to be standing in the casino when Natasha Ling walked by with her latest group of junket guests.

Dumah recognized two members of the group immediately. It was the heiress and her servant. Only that's not who they were today, and that probably wasn't who they were before. Either way, they deserved agony.

He didn't have a spear to fling at them, or a knife to cut their throats. What he had was a radio. He pressed the button in his pocket, activating the microphone, so that he could speak to his supervisor.

“I need to see Mr. Trace,” Dumah said. “It's urgent.”

The only difference between Trace's private dining room in Côte d'Argent Macau and the one in Las Vegas were the paintings on the wall. In Macau, he displayed masterpieces by Qi Baishi, Chen Yifei, and Ai Weiwei to impress his Asian guests. He also had a print of the seven dogs playing poker to amuse himself. The dining room had the same atrium and koi pond, though the only koi that were ever in the pond were ones that he fed to the piranhas.

Trace sat at his table beside the pond, browsing the
South China Morning Post
and eating a breakfast of steamed dim sum, Portuguese egg custard tarts, fresh fruit, and hot milk tea. He sported a carefully groomed three-day beard and was dressed casually in a blue-striped mandarin-collared, knot-buttoned dress shirt that was untucked over faded black jeans. He thought it was a look that straddled East and West but that fit with his devil-may-care image.

Natasha Ling came in, smiling at him as she crossed the Plexiglas bridge that arched over the pond and into the dining room.

“Mr. Sweet and Miss Porter have arrived with their guests,” Natasha said, taking a seat at the table. “They are up in the eighth-floor suite and are already gambling.”

He set the newspaper aside. “What do we know about their guests?”

“Lou Ould-Abdallah is from Mogadishu. He is a Somali warlord who has hijacked everything from oil tankers to yachts moving through the Strait of Malacca and the Gulf of Aden. Sometimes he sets the crews free and sells the boats and cargo, and other times he holds the crew and vessels for ransom. He's been known to behead his captives when negotiations aren't going to his satisfaction.”

“My kind of guy.” Trace took a sip of his milk tea. “How much did his last ransom bring him?”

“One hundred million dollars,” Natasha said.

Trace whistled appreciatively. “Nice haul. So he's sitting on a pile of cash in the desert and looking to spend it on something besides another camel. What's the other high roller's story?”

“Shane Blackmore is a Canadian mobster. He started in the trucking business, smuggling stolen goods between the U.S. and Canada, then branched out into narcotics distribution and sex trafficking,” she said. “He controls the drug and sex trade from Vancouver to Toronto.”

“Vancouver and Toronto is about all there is between Vancouver and Toronto.”

“That's why he's anxious to expand,” she said. “He's got enough money stashed to buy his way into a business, legitimate or otherwise, somewhere else. He just needs to get his cash out of Canada to do it.”

“I'm glad to be of service,” Trace said. “We could make a lot of money from these two. How did Sweet hook up with them?”

“I don't know yet.” Natasha reached for one of the egg tarts on Trace's plate, and he slapped her hand.

She slapped his face, hard enough to draw blood from the corner of his mouth.

Trace licked the blood away and smiled. “That's nice, but it's more fun somehow when you're wearing leather and stiletto heels.”

She picked up the egg tart and took a bite out of it before speaking. “I can change my clothes if you'd like.”

He was considering the pros and cons of that offer when Garver walked in. Garver moved with a lumbering, slightly hunched gait that looked as if he was fighting the urge to knuckle-walk like a gorilla. He was accompanied by one of Côte d'Argent's security men, a big Indonesian who kept a respectful step or two behind Garver. Trace had seen the Indonesian around the casino but had never actually met him.

“There's something you've got to hear,” Garver said. “It's about Sweet and Porter.” Garver gave the Indonesian a nod. “Tell him, Dumah.”

“I met them two years ago, while I was a bodyguard for Derek Griffin,” Dumah said. If a grizzly bear could talk, Trace thought, he would sound like this guy.

“The investment banker who ran off with a half billion dollars of his clients' money? You were working for a celebrity. Why didn't I know that?” Trace looked at Garver. “Do you remember seeing Griffin on Dumah's résumé?”

“I don't read résumés,” Garver said. “I read scars.”

“I haven't told anyone about that job, Mr. Trace,” Dumah said. “The story I'm about to tell you is the reason why. Griffin was hiding out on an island, safe from extradition, when that woman arrived on a yacht. She said that she'd been attacked by Bugis pirates. The man she was with today was there, too, only he was her servant back then. That night, the pirates invaded the island, took the Americans hostage, and let me go.”

“No wonder you don't use Griffin as a reference,” Trace said. “I hope you show me more loyalty than you showed him.”

“It's true, I didn't protect him. I saved myself instead. But I think by telling you about those two, and revealing my personal shame, that I am demonstrating my loyalty,” Dumah said. “I could have just waited for the right moment, slit their throats, and restored my dignity without anyone but me knowing that it had ever been lost.”

“Fair point,” Trace said. “Go on.”

“Two days after I left the island, Griffin was arrested in Palm Springs, California. It made no sense. How did he get there? What happened to the woman and her servant? There was never any news about them. It was as if they never existed.”

“I can see why you'd be angry at the pirates,” Natasha said. “But why do you want to kill Sweet and Porter?”

“Because they are responsible for my shame,” Dumah said. “They either led the pirates to the island through their stupidity, or they brought them there intentionally. I knew something wasn't right about those two the moment they came ashore. I warned Griffin that they were trouble, but he wouldn't listen to me. He just wanted to get the woman into bed.”

“Did he succeed?” Trace asked.

Dumah shook his head, no. “Now he's in prison and those two are here, but as entirely different people. They're frauds. Whatever they've told you is a lie. They're here to take something.”

Or
someone,
Trace thought. Was it him? Or was it the Canadian mobster and the Somali warlord that they were entertaining upstairs? Or were they after something else entirely?

Trace stood up. “I think it's time we had a candid conversation with Sweet.”

“Okay,” Garver said. “I'll go get my lie detector.”

“You do that,” Trace said. “Dumah, come with me.”

Another hand was about to be dealt in the eighth-floor VIP gambling suite, a luxury two-bedroom, harbor-view apartment with a baccarat table, a sitting area, and a well-stocked bar. Boyd put $1 million in chips on the betting line. Nick gambled $250,000 on Boyd's hand, and Billy Dee wagered $100,000 with the dealer.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Boyd said to Billy Dee.

“I've seen your luck,” Billy Dee said. “I'm here to win, not make friends.”

They were an hour into play, and Nick and Billy Dee were up about $200,000, but Boyd was already down over a million dollars. This was Boyd's swing for the fences to get it all back in one hand.

Kate sat on a stool at the bar, watching the game and absentmindedly plucking items from the platters of dim sum and Portuguese pastries on the counter. At the rate Boyd was going, she was worried that he'd be tapped out in the next half hour and that she'd eat everything on the bar.

The dealer was a pretty, young Macanese woman named Luisa, who was all smiles and girly enthusiasm on the surface, but in complete command of her table. She dealt the cards with swift efficiency. Luisa was ordered to do that by the casino. The faster the men played, the more they'd bet and the more likely it was that they'd lose.

Standing beside Luisa was a grim-faced Macanese man named Tony who made notations on an iPad and watched the chips.

Boyd flipped over his cards to reveal a pair of twos. He swallowed half of the Bloody Mary that was in front of him.

“Hit me again, honey,” Boyd said, though he had no choice but to take another card. “Make it a five.”

Luisa gave him a card. Boyd winked at her. She smiled coyly back at him and he flipped the card over. It was a seven. That gave him a measly one.

“Bad luck,” Nick said.

“The game isn't over yet,” Boyd said and twirled his mustache.

The dim sum was sitting like a rock in Kate's gut. She could face down a two-hundred-pound man attacking with a knife and not break a sweat, but she was terrified at the thought of explaining the loss of a million dollars to her boss. Even without the threat of reprisal, Kate had a hard time justifying this kind of gambling. She was thrifty and law-abiding by nature, and that didn't change just because she zipped herself into a sexpot dress.

Luisa flipped over her cards, dealt herself one more, and came up with a hand that added up to ten, which in baccarat is equivalent to zero. She'd lost the game. Boyd had taken it with a one. It took a beat for it to sink in to Kate. Saved by the luck of the draw, she thought, letting out a
whoosh
of air.

Boyd whooped, pumping his fist in the air. “
That's
how you play the game. Watch and learn, boys.”

Evan Trace strolled casually into the suite.

Nick looked over at him. “Well, this is a nice surprise.”

“For both of us,” Trace said, flashing his warmest smile. “I'm glad our trips here coincided. Now I can personally welcome you and your friends to Côte d'Argent Macau.”

Nick stood up and turned to the others. “Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to—”

“No freakin' gondolas!”
Boyd said, shouldering past Nick and thrusting his hand out to Trace. “Gambling straight up, that's how I like it, too. Just deal the cards and screw the show. I'm Shane Blackmore.”