Aztec Gold

THIRTY

Crouch rose immediately, more plans than Venetian slot machines chirping inside his head. Coker’s men had returned to the Venetian for a reason, a major one. The operation had been full of risk to start with, but to succeed and then bring at least part of your loot and military force into a Las Vegas casino for forty minutes seemed… inexplicable.

“The big player is here.” Crouch suddenly saw it. “Coker was forced to bring the plunder for that bastard to see, otherwise why not take it straight to an airfield? The South African has to be staying here.”

“Two birds—” Alicia began.

“Too bloody right,” Crouch said. “I’ve been messed about one time too many during this trip.”

Russo counted men as they slipped out of the elevator. “At least a dozen plus Coker, sir. We’re gonna need everyone.”

Crouch tightened his lips into a stubborn line. “I won’t let this bastard go. Healey, we’re leaving you here. Orders are to scope the South African out; survey but don’t engage. When we return we’ll want enough information from you to formulate a take down. Got it?”

Healey was wide-eyed with surprise and sudden self-doubt. Crouch moved away briskly, leaving him to it, but Russo and Alicia pulled the young man aside.

“Walk the halls. Purchase a room up there. Try to talk to his men. Follow them. Learn their habits. If you can do all of that tonight we might even treat you to a Denny’s ice cream.” Alicia winked.

“Do what you can, mate.” Russo said. “If we had time we’d juice up one of the security team to help, but… ” He shrugged.

Coker’s team headed out. Crouch lingered beside a bank of slot machines, Caitlyn and Cruz already playing. Alicia gave Healey one last punch for good luck and walked away. Quickly, they tracked Coker’s men to the casino entrance for Las Vegas Boulevard, the opposite side of the complex to where the chopper had landed.

Crouch looked mystified. “What on earth are they playing at?”

Caitlyn pointed out the time. “It’s almost midnight. I would hazard a guess that they have an alternative method of moving stolen treasure out of the country. Perhaps on the back of an eighteen wheeler to an unguarded coast.”

“Good guess,” Crouch commended her. “Off the top of your head?”

“I’ve worked stolen art a few times for MI6.”

“But first they have to get it to the eighteen wheeler.” Russo parted from the group, keeping their movements as innocuous as possible.

Alicia drifted in the other direction, alone now. She emerged from the casino into a path of glittering lights, the famous Campanile Bell Tower and Rialto Bridge off to her left, a perfect expanse of polished flagstones leading in that direction. Down a set of steps she went, staring at the sights but not really seeing them as the peripheries of her vision were all that she cared about.

Coker and his men dawdled deliberately down the steps, mingling with the crowds, the man with the suitcase struggling. At first Alicia thought they were aiming for one of several parked cars or the taxi rank but then they pointed themselves directly toward Las Vegas Boulevard and put their heads down.

Crouch came in over the Bluetooth connection. “Full reconnaissance mode. Split up. Let’s go front and rear. I want to know exactly what they’re doing, but stay wary. They may have their own set of spotters in the crowd too.”

Alicia put on a surge of speed, meaning to spy on their quarry from in front. Russo dropped back and Crouch stayed at a safe distance, surveying all. Caitlyn linked arms with Cruz and moved to the very back of the men, close enough to touch their backpacks if she’d wanted. Even that close the couple could barely be distinguished from dozens of others. Alicia watched as the man with the suitcase called a temporary halt, moving his hand to get a better grip of the handle, muscles bulging as he started to pull again. As Kate had said that ‘sucker’ had to be heavy. Or maybe the merc was a lightweight, all testosterone and steroids? Alicia shrugged it off. They would find out soon enough.

Toward Treasure Island and across Las Vegas Boulevard they walked, almost running in their haste, dodging between moving cars and freewheeling cyclists. Coker’s men picked up the pace, suspicious to a point but making speed their priority. Alicia leaped over the hood of a car as it braked, then ducked behind another as one of Coker’s men turned to stare in the direction of the sudden squeal of rubber. She snaked around the car’s rear, emerging as a wandering tourist. Russo and Crouch came together on the sidewalk, the big man noting a McDonalds sign and shouting, “Grab us a burger!” in his loudest voice. The din and tumult of the crowds served to anesthetize Coker’s attentiveness, some partygoers even pushing into his men’s backpacks as they squeezed by. A boy-racer revved his engine on the Strip, bright lights flashing underneath his car. Crouch used the distraction to drift even closer. If Coker had turned at that point the men would have been face to face.

Alicia wondered if Crouch was hoping for it. They certainly couldn’t afford to let Coker escape today.

More tire squealing and happy shrieking split the night; the sounds of the nearby Mirage volcano eruptions resounding above it all. Alicia watched Lex eyeing up a green superbike and hoped fervently that he wouldn’t try to steal it. In another moment both Coker’s team and her own were entirely swallowed by a huge hen party; girls with names strapped to their backs and faces gaudy with makeup, cackling like a brood of chickens. Most of them carried long-necked bottles sporting straws and small black handbags sporting the name Fendi or Louis Vuitton or Calvin Klein in subtle lettering. Alicia fought her way through as the group were threading between the big pirate-themed Treasure Island hotel and The Mirage along a palm-tree-lined road called Siren’s Cove Boulevard. Even with calmer side entrances to Treasure Island the foot traffic along here was less intense, forcing Crouch and his team to fall back. Alicia ranged ahead, using parked cars and the huge amount of foliage to conceal her surveillance, moving like the sleekest panther in the night. As the road widened and led them even further away from the Strip, Crouch’s team were forced to hop from concealment to concealment, fleet of foot, staying as low and unobtrusive as possible. Even Alicia ran out of foliage and was forced to crabwalk along a line of parked limos to stay active. Coker’s men hustled along, military training giving them a single-mindedness that pointed them only toward their ultimate goal. The road became Buccaneer Boulevard and now the buildings looked more industrialized; even though many of them were signed Mirage and Treasure Island, the sheer quantity of warehouses told Alicia that this was a bit of a woolly area — vague as to its uses.

Pickup trucks were parked most of the way down the road and in parking lots. Small cranes and white trailers stood all around. Alicia saw and heard Coker shouting into a handset as the group approached South Industrial Road, a six-lane road running parallel to the Strip but far easier to navigate.

A tall white van waited at the side of the road.

“Forget the eighteen wheeler,” Alicia hissed. “All these goons need is a quiet road and a van.”

Crouch groaned. “Damn it. We can’t let them get away now.” With a shake of his head and a quick rub to relieve stressed eyes he shrugged off the potential consequences and issued an order.

“Take them down.”

Alicia acted instantly, pouncing out of hiding and drawing her weapon. “Stop right there!” she cried, feeling a little foolish and wondering if her surroundings were making her sound more American than usual.

Coker spun around, as did most of his men, only half a dozen steps from the van. In the light cast by the overhead traffic lights and street lamps his face went bleach-white, his frame suddenly flaccid.

“What are you doing?” he managed before his men dropped and opened fire. Alicia ducked behind a palm tree as he shouted, “I won’t let you kill them!”

Crouch and Russo came in from the other direction, firing as they walked. Mercenaries screamed and twisted, backpacks crashing down first as they fell backwards. In a moment both Crouch and Russo were among them and a full-fledged melee broke out in the middle of the Las Vegas street.

With the skies as black as a criminal’s heart above and vehicles moving slowly past, with the scene lit starkly by streetlamps and the ever-changing traffic lights, Crouch, Russo and Alicia met with Coker’s remaining force of men to fight for the stolen Aztec gold. Alicia threw a right and a left, connected with a square jaw, and saw the man drop like a stone. Russo threw an opponent into the side of the van, heard bones shatter and saw the entire vehicle shift. One of the side doors slid aside to reveal even more men crouched inside. With weapons already drawn they hesitated on seeing the open brawl outside.

Alicia didn’t give them time to reassess. Firing from the hip, she approached the van, taking out the first two and sending the others scrambling into the shadows. She jumped up onto the passenger side and grabbed hold of the door handle.

The driver stared across at her, alarmed.

Alicia broke the window, but then a man grabbed hold of her ankle, forcing her back to the sidewalk. She quickly put him to her heel and the van roared as it sped off.

“No!” Coker practically shrieked. “Oh no.”

Crouch rounded on the man, giving him no chance to start a dialog. He struck again and again, refraining from using the pistol in his left hand but showing no mercy with his fists. Coker staggered back and then sat down heavily, blood coating his cheeks. He didn’t even try to stand up to Crouch, but stared with those haunted eyes.

“What have you done?”

Russo launched men left and right like a missile silo. Alicia used her quick, devastating strikes to take even more out, for the most part ensuring that one blow was enough. Some of these mercs were more highly trained than others, but none were her match. The men at their core, four of them, formed a last stand with knives and pistols at the ready.

Alicia was three feet away. She couldn’t move faster than a bullet. Crouch and Russo were even further away. With the suitcase inside their circle the last four men still gave a grim outlook to the proceedings even with half a dozen of their comrades sprawled about them.

Coker struggled to rise. “Still a chance,” he muttered. “Damn you, Crouch. You were always an overachiever.”

“Give it up, Coker.”

“Never. It’s a stand-off. Walk away.”

Alicia flicked her gaze toward South Industrial Road, saw what was coming hard across its flat, gray surface, and winced.

“Shit guys. I’d fucking duck if I were you.”

Before anyone could react, the roar of a Kawasaki Ninja blasted out a few seconds ahead of the bright green superbike, ridden hard by Lex, and pointed directly at the heart of the mercenary’s four-man circle. It was without doubt the same one he’d been admiring back at Las Vegas Boulevard. At the last moment Lex leaned back, raising the front wheel so that the bike clipped the curb at speed and rose into the air, tires spinning, traveling several feet off the ground and splitting the mercs’ formation apart. When it landed the bike spun to the side, sending Lex into an uncontrollable spin. Caitlyn and Cruz ran to him.

Alicia winced but didn’t fail to take advantage of the new situation. The flying bike had broken one merc’s arm and knocked a second into unconsciousness. The last two were picking themselves up as Russo and she plowed among them. A knee to the face and an ungainly pounce from Russo put an end to their battle.

Crouch rounded instantly on Coker. “You’re going to prison, my friend! What the hell are you doing with these maniacs?”

Alicia rounded up all the backpacks and the particularly heavy suitcase. A quick peek inside revealed the Wheel of Gold, a treasure that had been the cause of so much death and mayhem down the years it ought to be drenched in blood.

“My family.” Coker’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “He has teams watching them twenty four hours a day. He sends me fucking video updates of my wife taking a shower or my daughter making dinner with her husband. Every day.” Coker folded into a fetal position, body wracked with sobs. “I can’t fucking… stand it… anymore.”

And he lunged for the nearest gun, snatched it up, and aimed the barrel at his own head.