Tricks and Traps (Gray Spear Society Book 7) (5 page)

"You like my collection?" Balzar said in a surprisingly deep voice.

"I'm not familiar with these names," Aaron said.

"Famous cheaters. I've created my own personal museum of cheating. It's a fun hobby. My secretary mentioned you came to make a purchase?"

Aaron and Marina sat facing Balzar. A broad mahogany desk was between them.

"Yes," Aaron said. "Today is my wife's birthday, which means she gets anything she wants. It's been a rule for as long as we've been married."

He and Marina gave each other loving smiles.

"What does she want?" Balzar said.

"One of those Super Double Monkey things that everybody is talking about," Aaron said.

Balzar snorted and chuckled derisively. "Impossible."

"We're both businessmen. We know that impossible just means expensive. What will it cost to make my darling wife happy?"

"They're not for sale at any price."

"I don't believe that," Aaron said.

"It's true. By contract, those machines aren't allowed to leave the premises for any reason. When they break, we send them back to the factory. If I tried to sell one, I'd be fired immediately, and then sued. But if you'd like to purchase another of our fine games, I'll listen to your offer. We do sell machines to make room for new ones."

"No, my wife wants Double Monkey."

"Then you wasted your time coming here," Balzar said.

Aaron furrowed his brow. "Could you tell me where I can buy one? Where is the factory?"

"I can't disclose that information. The manufacturer is very selective about his customers."

"Strange. Why wouldn't he sell to anybody willing to pay full price?"

Balzar shrugged. "You should go now. This conversation is over."

Aaron wasn't ready to go. There was information here that he needed. He glanced over his shoulder. The security guard in blue was standing by the door.

Aaron whispered to Marina, "Do you want to start with the guard or the guy?"

"The guard," she replied.

She stood up and approached the guard. High heels gave her an exaggerated walk.

"Are you coming dear?" she said sweetly.

Aaron shook his head. "Jack Diamond doesn't take no for an answer."

"The nice man asked you to go."

"It's just a negotiating tactic."

She sighed. "When you change your mind, I'll be in the casino."

She stumbled a little and put her hand on the guard's shoulder to avoid a fall. Her sharp, black fingernails punctured his neck.

"Hey!" He slapped his neck like he was swatting a mosquito. "That hurt!"

She backed away. His eyes rolled up into his head. She caught him and eased him to the floor.

Balzar stood up. "Are you OK?"

Aaron drew a gun from inside his jacket and pointed it at Balzar's chest. "Sit."

"What do you think you're doing?" Balzar sat down. "You won't get a monkey machine this way. You'll just go to jail."

"Hold still."

Marina quickly walked over and injected venom into Balzar's neck. He tried to push her off, but she just swept his arms aside. A moment later, he was sleeping with his face on his desk.

"Search the office," Aaron said. "We're not leaving until we find a lead."

"You could ask nicely," Marina said. "I don't work for you."

"Search the office, please, dear."

"Gladly."

Aaron didn't see any file cabinets. They checked the desk drawers carefully but only found routine paperwork. There was nothing with the name "Double Monkey" on it.

"There must be a hidden safe." Marina examined the walls.

"Keep looking while I work on the computer."

There was a computer on the desk. He pressed the keys, but of course, it was locked. Fortunately, he had a method for dealing with locked computers. He took a small tool pouch out of his jacket. He opened the computer's case and extracted the hard drive. The twins would analyze the data when he returned to headquarters.

"I think I found it," Marina announced.

Aaron walked over. Circular marks on the carpet indicated a section of wall could rotate around a central pivot. There was a seam but it was hard to see. They couldn't find the latch.

"Stand back," he said.

He hit the wall with his strongest side kick. Wood splintered under the powerful blow. A second kick punched through the wall.

She put her hand through the hole. After a moment, she said, "Ah! Got it."

There was a click. A concealed door pivoted, revealing a room on the other side. It contained several brown file cabinets and a big safe.

"I'll take the safe," he said.

"Quickly. We're spending too much time here." She started going through the file cabinets.

He examined the safe critically. It was four feet tall and almost as wide. Huge hinges suggested the door was very heavy.

The face of a safe was always the thickest and strongest part, so he didn't even consider trying to cut through it. He didn't have that much saliva. He spat at the front legs instead. Yellow slime ate through the metal, and the safe dropped forward a few inches.

He climbed on top. The angle was awkward, but using the great strength in his arms and legs, he levered the safe forward until it fell all the way. It hit the floor with a thud that rattled the walls.

"Shh!" Marina said.

"Sorry," Aaron said.

The back of the safe was just a metal plate held in place by bolts. He used his saliva to cut away the bolts until he was able to wrench off the plate.

The contents of the safe were a mess. He ignored the cash, jewelry, and other useless items and scooped up the documents instead. There wasn't time to examine what he was grabbing, so he just took the binders that looked most important.

"Any luck with the file cabinets?"

She shook her head. "No. There are thousands of folders. It would take me hours to check them all."

"Then let's just go. We're out of time. We'll look at this stuff in the car." He held up his stack of binders.

They left the office. The secretary gave them a curious look as they walked past, and Aaron and Marina just smiled at her.

An exit sign showed them the quickest way out. They walked outside, and he blinked in the bright morning sunlight. The day was already getting warm and muggy.

The Aladdin's Magic Casino was built on the shore of Lake Michigan. They had come out on the lake side, and the view was spectacular. Blue-green waves sparkled out to the horizon. A good number of boats were sailing today, ranging from two-man sailboats to big yachts worth millions of dollars. A giant freighter cruised in the distance.

"Come on," Marina said.

She and Aaron walked around the casino until they reached the parking garage. They found their small, brown sedan and sat inside. He gave her half of the stack of binders.

He began to examine his half. Most of the material was accounting records, and the numbers didn't mean much to him. He was impressed by the size of the figures though. Clearly, the casino handled a great deal of money.

"Jackpot!" Marina said.

Aaron looked over. She had found an invoice for four Super Double Monkey machines. The listed price was $250,000 each, but the manufacturer's name wasn't on the sheet.

"Expensive," he said.

"I bet they pay for themselves pretty quickly." She furrowed her brow. "This shipping address is in Vladivostok, Russia. I think that's a port city near North Korea. Interesting."

"Maybe I should call the Society commander there. This investigation suddenly has an international flavor."

"I'll do it," she said. "I speak Russian."

She took out her phone. It was very unusual for commanders in different divisions to talk directly to each other, and tracking down the phone number required jumping through some hoops.

Finally, Marina made contact with a man named Andrei, the commander of Vladivostok. The conversation started in Russian but quickly switched to English. Marina put the phone in speaker mode so Aaron could participate. Andrei's accent was thick, but Aaron could still understand him.

"You are the commander of Chicago?" Andrei said.

"That's correct," Aaron said.

"I have heard of Chicago. It is the home of the famous twins."

"You know about them?"

"Of course," Andrei said. "I am told they are the smartest hackers in the world."

Aaron raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know their reputation had spread so far."

"They have become legends. The whole Society uses their security software."

"They never mentioned that fact to me, but I didn't call to talk about the twins. We're involved in an investigation that touches your territory. A casino game called Super Double Monkey is being shipped from your city. I would like you to check it out, if possible. I want to know who makes these damned machines."

"What is the problem?" Andrei said.

"They're destroying lives, and nobody will talk about them. It smells very wrong."

"I will be happy to investigate. Please, send all the information to me."

"As soon as I get back to my headquarters," Aaron said. "Thank you. Good bye."

Marina put away her phone. "What's next?"

"We're going home, but we have to make one stop along the way. Nancy is going to meet us in Chinatown."

"Why?"

"We have to perform a property inspection," he said.

Chapter Three

Aaron and Marina stood in the parking lot of the building at 500 West Cermak Road. The best word to describe the building was "massive." Five stories tall and as wide as a football field, it seemed heavy enough to crush the ground beneath it. Aaron couldn't guess how many bricks and how much concrete had been used in its construction. Seventy years of inner city pollution had stained the surface almost black.

There was no glass in the windows. Plywood covered all the openings, and steel bars provided extra security on the lower two floors. The doors were made of steel. It wasn't an inviting place.

"Xavier's legacy lives on," Marina said.

Aaron nodded. "When I bought this property, I knew right away it had a lot of potential. It's practically a fortress already."

A little, green sedan pulled into the parking lot. Nancy stepped out into the summer warmth. She wore blue coveralls with dark stains on the right thigh. The sleeves of her plaid shirt were rolled up. Heavy work boots had the laces tied all the way to the top.

"Hello, sir, ma'am," she said. "This is the first time I've been inside without a gas mask. Are you sure it's safe?"

"It had better be," Aaron said. "We certainly paid enough for the cleanup. Let's go."

All three of them were holding high-power flashlights. They went to one of the doors, and he used a key to open it. The interior was completely dark until they turned on their flashlights.

"Watch your step," Aaron said.

They went inside. All the interior walls and fixtures had been removed, allowing him to see through to the far side of the building. A regular grid of octagonal concrete posts went from the concrete floor to the concrete ceiling.

They proceeded through the vast space, but there wasn't much to see. Every surface had been steam cleaned. Aaron didn't see a speck of dust or a spider web anywhere.

"It looks structurally sound," Nancy said. "Still, we should hire engineers to perform a proper analysis before we start any construction. This is an old building after all. I don't want chunks of concrete falling on people's heads."

"Let's check out the basement," he said.

They found a stairway down. The floor below was made of packed dirt and gravel. The building was beside a water channel, and dampness had made the dirt soft. Aaron was wearing dress shoes which sank into the ground. He was jealous of Nancy's work boots. Marina's high heels were such a problem that she took them off and walked on her stockings.

"We could certainly build something interesting down here," Aaron said.

"I don't want to dig much deeper, sir," Nancy said. "We'll be fighting the river. Remember what the old headquarters on Wacker was like? Drip, drip, drip."

"Regardless, I want to make the entire basement a secret chamber. It will be bigger than our current headquarters."

She looked around. "That could work. We'll need a sneaky way to get in and out." She furrowed her brow. "A secret lift off the first floor? Or maybe we could do something cool with the parking lot..."

He could almost see the wheels turning in her brain. He expected she would have plans for him to see within a week.

"Let's check out the rest of the building quickly. I need to get back to headquarters soon."

"Yes, sir." She picked up some dirt and rubbed it between her fingers. "Fixing up this place is going to be fun."

* * *

Aaron and Marina were holding hands as they entered headquarters. It was probably beneath the dignity of two commanders to behave like teenagers in love, but he didn't care. His time with her was very limited, and he intended to make the most of it.
To hell with appearances,
he thought.

They went straight to the computer room. There was so much fan noise it sounded like a jet engine at full power. Racks of computers covered all the walls, and there was a second layer of racks inside the first. Even more computers were stashed in the next room. The cost of all this hardware had pushed deep into eight figures. It drew more electricity than the entire hotel below and required a separate air conditioner the size of a bus.

The twins' ergonomic workstations occupied the center of the crowded room. The seats were slung like hammocks and made of stretchy webbing. Curved bars held grids of computer monitors above. Bethany and Leanna weren't in their seats.

Aaron looked up and yelled, "Where are the twins?"

Jack's voice came down from speakers in the ceiling. "On the roof, sir."

"What are they doing up there?"

"Sitting."

Aaron clenched his jaw in irritation. "This is ridiculous," he muttered.

"Go easy," Marina said. "They're having a tough time."

"When did you get so soft with assistants who won't do their job?"