Agent of Influence: A Thriller (10 page)

“Where is it? The package the woman gave you? Give it to me and I will let you live.” The quizzical look on her face told Solomon’s trained eye she did not know what he was talking about, and he quickly emptied one shot into her chest. Her half naked body slumped to the cold tile floor, her arms pulling toiletries on the sink crashing down all around her. He holstered the Belgian made weapon. It took fifteen seconds to finish them both off. He immediately went through the woman’s purse, emptying the cash and credit cards before doing the same to the man’s wallet. His gloved hands expertly searched both bodies. He then proceeded to meticulously go through the entire room.
             

             
Solomon’s luck had finally changed for the better an hour earlier when Shakir had a stroke of luck, and reacquired the threesome he had lost as they were leaving the MGM. Solomon still was milling around the area at the time so he took it upon himself to assist. They followed the trio back to the Imperial Palace. Solomon instructed Shakir to deal with the single male, and Solomon would take the more complicated job of dealing with two targets.

His ten-minute search of the room turned up nothing of interest, and he quickly accepted the fact that he probably just killed two completely innocent people. His phone vibrated. Shakir had instructions to text him to inform Solomon of which floor he was on. The fat Arab was two floors below. Solomon dashed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. The stairs would be quicker than the elevator. He sprinted down the hallway, hoping the boss’s minion did not screw things up before he could get there.

***

Alex opened the door of his room, and smiled as he saw that the maids had already cleaned up his mess from the previous evening. He made a mental note to leave a nice tip for them since he was sure the bathroom had not been fun to clean. He dropped his wallet on the table, and
headed straight to the toilet to relieve himself. The weekend was certainly off to an exciting start. Two people falling off a roller coaster and plunging to their deaths did not relax the tension he was already feeling thanks to his mysterious encounter the previous evening.

He glanced at his ever-expanding wallet again as he washed his hands. His string of good fortune had continued unabated at the
Luxor. He was beginning to feel invincible every time he sat down to gamble. He immediately scolded himself for the thought. The moment one starts to think one cannot lose was normally when lady luck yanked their chair out from under them and beat them over the head with it. A quick nap was in order right now though to re-energize for the evening. He started to crawl into bed when he realized that he did not close the entry door to the room all the way. He slid off the bed to take care of it.

Alex
placed the palm of his hand against the door and started to give it a shove. As he did so, he felt a slight pressure pushing back. The door would not budge, as if someone was trying to open it from the other end.  He peered around the crack in the door and caught a glimpse of a large man in dress slacks and an open collared shirt leaning against the door. It was the same man he had seen several times in the casino.

The man hesitated, surprised at being caught in the act. “Uh, hotel security, sir.” The voice did not convey authority. He sounded unsure, as though he were trying to remember a script he had been rehearsing. The thought of the cell phone and the strange woman flashed across Alex’s mind. Was this part of the test that he had been nervously waiting for?

              “Is there a problem?” Alex asked. The man’s only response was to take a step back, and then crash his portly body against the door with all the force he could muster. The impact sent Alex flying back into the room, his body sprawled across the floor at the foot of the queen size bed. His mind raced, trying to come up with a plan of action. Was he supposed to fight back? His shoulder throbbed from the blow, but nothing appeared to be broken. He tried desperately to regain his normal breathing pattern as the man stepped inside the room, using his meaty paw to slam the door.

“Am I supposed to fight back, buddy? You have to tell me what the plan is.”
The man answered by reaching into his sport coat and pulling out a gun. Alex lunged for the dresser to the left of him, reaching for a bottle of cologne to toss at the man. He hurled it at his attacker, but the man’s gun already was poised for the kill, its single black eye looking at him with no emotion. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion as a gun went off, the noise echoing in the hallway. Alex stared dumbfounded as the intruder stopped in his tracks and looked down at his chest, which now had a black stain in the middle of his white shirt. The shot did not come from the fat man’s weapon. Another shot erupted and the man’s knees buckled, his pistol falling harmlessly on the carpet and landing just a few feet from Alex. The bulky carcass of the man crashed to the floor. Instinct told him to grab the dead man’s gun. His confusion now turned to fear. The man was certainly dead. Two rapidly increasing dark spots enveloped the large man’s back as his twitching body lay face down on the hotel floor. Standing in the threshold of the open doorway, already holstering her weapon was the beautiful woman from the airport.

             
“
Alex, grab your wallet and the cell phone I gave you. We’re leaving right now,” she demanded in a tone that was very calm considering the situation.

             
“Who the hell are you, and what the …” Alex got cut off in mid-sentence.

             
“No time to talk. We need to get out of here or we’ll both be dead. More men are on the way. Grab the phone or I’ll shoot you as well.” The shocking comment and serious look on her face stunned him into motion, and he rushed for the bathroom sink to get it. She grabbed it from his hand and they raced down the hallway to the staircase.             

             
“What about the elevator?” Alex blurted out as they ran.              

             
“No way. This is faster. Besides he may have men controlling it. Not sure.”

The metal door leading to the stairwell closed behind them. Alex glanced back, peering through the small glass square at the top of it. A few people had poked their heads out of their rooms, trying to ascertain the source of the noise. Alex watched as another man exited the stairwell at the opposite end of the floor with his gun raised. The man purposefully made his way down the hallway as the curious hotel guests
went into self-preservation mode and slammed their doors shut.

“What are
you doing? Get down here now!” The woman demanded from the flight of stairs below him.              

             
“Someone came out of the other stairwell. He has a gun.”             

“
No shit. I told you they were coming. The valet will not hold my car much longer. You have two seconds before I put a bullet in your head.” They dashed down the stairs without another word. Alex followed the woman like a dog being led around on a noose by its owner. There did not seem to be any other options. They raced through the casino, drawing annoying looks from gamblers, and loud reprimands from the pit bosses who barked at them to slow down. It was still quiet in the casino. The evening crowd was still a few hours from arriving.              

             
As they approached the front entrance of the hotel he suddenly realized he may be an accomplice to murder. He could see a hotel employee holding open the door to an SUV. The young man was staring at them with a look of annoyance. Alex’s only hope was that this was part of the game. The woman pushed through the revolving door at a rapid pace, causing the doors to hit an elderly couple who were moving slowly on the other side of the circle. They toppled to the floor as Alex and the woman emerged from the interior of the casino out on to the front portico of the hotel.

She stuffed a wad of money into the valet’s hand and apologized for being late. With no one else to trust, he followed her lead as they climbed into a silver
Toyota 4Runner that was idling at the front of the line of vehicles. She floored the gas, and the bulky vehicle shot out onto Las Vegas Boulevard, causing a limousine to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting them. Alex did not know where they were going and did not care. He just desperately wanted some answers.

“I need to know what’s
going on here if I’m going to pass your test.” The woman shot him a look of fiery intensity with her eyes that told him to remain silent. Alex immediately thought of the dead man in the hotel room and shut his mouth.

Chapter 15

             
Aman stretched his portly figure across the massive purple couch, trying his best to make himself comfortable. The man just would not shut up. He held the phone away from his ear so he could clearly hear the sound of the East Coast accent, while not having to actually listen to the words. The man Zach chose to be his attorney general continued to read through a long list of things he wanted to do and people he wanted working for him. Attorney General designate Samuel Rodenbeck was a typical Northeastern personality who expected to get what he wanted as soon as it was asked for. He was currently rattling off a string of abuses that the previous administration committed, and how he intended to rectify them.

A top graduate of an Ivy League law school, which one Aman had purposely forgotten, Samuel liked to claim he had spent his entire life fighting for the rights of the poor who had turned to crime because s
ociety rejected them. Now he was determined to reestablish the principles of the Warren Court of the 1950s and 1960s that had helped to bring fairness back to the judicial system. Those rights were slowly eroding over the last twenty years, but Samuel was sure he would be the one to put a stop to it.  After five minutes of polite listening, Aman assured him that Zach was still in agreement with him, and Aman promised to talk with Zach regarding the additional appointments. Aman hung up the phone in disgust before the man could start in on another cause-célèbre. 

             
After more than thirty years in the country he still did not understand the American thought process, especially among some of those in Zach’s own party. It seemed to Aman to border on suicide. They loved to play nice with the criminal element of their society, as if this would convince the criminal to change his ways. The freedom they claimed to love did nothing but provide a haven for every subversive and decadent behavior a person could dream of. He smiled, knowing that Zach would soon be in a position to create monumental change.  It would be the type of change that would create enough devastation so the rest of the world would finally be forced to sit up and take notice. 

Aman dropped the list of candidates he had been reading through with Mr. Rodenback, and stared through the window at the sunset splashing shadows across the cityscape of
Las Vegas. With the end so near, he found himself thinking back to the beginning of their hunt once again. They had come so far since then. When his handlers first told him about their idea, he had been distraught. Now, like all their other directives, it had proven to be inspired.

It was 1962, and Aman had been managing the casino for only a few years. The profits he was bringing in then were already huge, and he was eager to immediately begin
wreaking havoc, either in America or the Middle East. He looked back at their patience with awe. His forbearers knew they would most likely not live to see their work come to fruition, but they persisted with their plan.

***

            
1962

Aman stood in his open-air owner’s box, gazing out over the most famous racetrack in the world. Churchill Downs in
Louisville, Kentucky was filled with a sea of people, and he was soaking in the perfect spring day that the Derby was famous for. The thermostat read sixty-eight degrees, but the cool breeze blowing across the track brought a crisp chill to the first Saturday in May.

If my horse can perform in the scorching heat of
Egypt, then he should fly around this track
. Aman originally started his stables at the behest of his superiors just three years ago. He had no idea why they wanted him to do it, but he had learned to do as he was told, and his questions would eventually be answered. He now had a few race-worthy thoroughbreds, and this was his first visit to Churchill Downs. The first jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown, and the premier horse race in the world was the Kentucky Derby, and he was under orders to attend. His stable of horses was based in Cairo, and one of his horses would be running in a smaller race that went off before the Derby. His handlers told him they would make contact with him at the appropriate time. His palms were sweaty with the anticipation of the meeting.

Horse racing, Aman later learned, provided the perfect cover for his partners in
Egypt to enter the country with little or no supervision. They received only cursory glances from customs, and it was a simple matter for them to bring in the annual funds that Aman used to keep his organization in Las Vegas growing. Aman still remembered the excitement he felt that day as he waited for a member of the Brotherhood to meet him in his owners’ box.

Most of the other owners lingered around their stables in order to inspect their horses, but Aman was given strict orders to stay away from the stable. His superiors told him the trainer they used was a fanatic, and desperately wanted to win some races in the
United States. The trainer needed space to work, and Aman was to provide him with it. He felt out of his element around the stables and paddock area anyway, so he was content to stay in his private box in the grandstands, watching the day unfold through his binoculars. He was studying the latest odds for the next race when a young man in dirty overalls appeared out of the double doors just below him.  The man whispered furtively to the green-jacketed employee guarding the entrance and pointed in Aman’s general direction. The employee gave the young man permission to continue, and the boy bounded up the steps towards him. Aman noticed that the boy’s face was layered with a thin film of dirt.