OPEC’s Abdallah Bin Al-Said still hadn’t transferred the agreed-on initial payment from Dubai. That was something else that would demand his attention on Monday. He would also need to send Miguel back to Kubacki’s operation to retrieve that strange floating car. Angelo was convinced that Yvonne had something to do with getting the girls out of his mansion, but it no longer mattered. He’d soon have all the proof he needed. He’d let Al-Said figure out how it worked.
Angelo’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted. “What the fuck is going on?” he shouted at one of the thugs standing next to him. He gripped the balcony rail tightly and leaned forward to have a closer look, his eyes almost popping out his head. Without warning, every single slot machine had started spewing out money. The noise of the bells and musical sirens was deafening. Lights announcing winners were flashing incessantly everywhere.
Like locusts, people swarmed from the gaming halls, no longer interested in Roulette, Jacks or Poker. Gamblers, who only moments ago were politely competing at Twenty-Ones, were now hungry for some of the action. Pushing and shoving, it became a mad race to those slots not being played by anyone◦– they, too, were pouring out cash. Scrambling to get ahead of the others, older ladies violently swinging their handbags were the most vicious. In an attempt to scoop money off the floor into her handbag, someone’s kindly old granny was biting a man’s ankle to get him out the way.
Angelo turned to one of the other thugs. “Have all power killed, immediately.”
The thug took off immediately to carry out Angelo’s orders.
Unfortunately for Angelo, emergency power automatically kicked in. He’d momentarily forgotten about that. Like all casino owners, he wasn’t going to let a small thing like a power failure stop people feeding in their money and credit cards. But now, that money was flowing to his detriment.
Cash and tokens continued to flood out at an unprecedented rate. Angelo was now shouting and cursing at everyone in earshot.
Miraculously, nobody on the slots floor was seriously injured, save perhaps for one man, who was carefully prying a full set of dentures off his leg.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Sitting next to Sven in front of the media room’s computer, Yvonne had watched the entire scene in Angelo’s casino unfold from a video recording played back from Sven’s flash drive.
Yvonne’s mind was in a spin. “When did this happen?”
“Saturday night,” Sven said, casually.
“I’d never been up to the balcony from where Angelo was standing,” Yvonne said. “Good choice of camera. At least you now know what he looks like, although his expression wasn’t that enraged when I knew him, nor was his face that colour. You certainly don’t need to be a lip reader to know what he’s shouting at the people around him.” She faced Sven. “That was you who tapped into his in-house surveillance, wasn’t it?”
Sven left the question unanswered. “The only things that Fabulous Angelo’s won’t be honouring are the house tokens, but fortunately, on the slots, they’re in the minority. Most of those people you were watching walked away with substantial amounts of cash.”
“Substantial?”
“Just less than two hundred million,” Sven said, matter of fact.
“I probably don’t want to know how that happened,” she said.
“I have a very deep-seated hatred for mobsters and slave-drivers, but more so, for gangsters who abduct little girls,” Sven said, with loathing. “Anyway, judging by your expression, you seem quite happy about this little act of revenge.”
“Little?” she said, unable to supress the vindictive satisfaction written all over her face.
“It’s safe to say, that Cevallos’s contribution to the IRS will be a lot less this year,” Sven said. “All his gaming houses are closed until they figure out what went wrong with his computers.”
“He’ll probably lose millions on that too,” she said.
“There’s another thing,” Sven said.
“What’s that?”
“Someone recently tried to transfer a billion dollars into one of Cevallos’s personal offshore bank accounts.”
“From where?” she said, eyes open wide with amazement.
“OPEC,” Sven said. “Specifically, Dubai, but Cevallos seems to be having some trouble with his banking as well. The money bounced back to its origin.”
“Angelo has obviously seen what went on at Kubacki’s operation,” she said. “It was amazing listening to Nate describe it.”
“Either Cevallos or one of his henchmen,” Sven said.
“Angelo isn’t stupid,” she said. “He would have figured out that an operation like that would be of immense concern to the oil producers.”
“It would put them out of business, if it got out,” Sven said. “So far, all Cevallos has thrown at them is a carrot. OPEC offered another nineteen billion once location and proof of concept was provided.”
“How would you know that?” Yvonne’s eyes were still firmly fixed on Sven. She paused. “My God!”
“What?” he said. Why women did that was always a source of amusement to Sven. Make a dramatic statement and then say nothing else. “Well?” he prompted again.
“Oh my God!” Yvonne slapped a hand to her breast. “You!”
Sven looked at her with a sideways glance.
“You. You’re Trinity.”
Sven didn’t deny it. No wonder James told her that anything she saw here was to be kept to herself. Yvonne had no idea of the magnitude behind that request.
“Who else at SkyTech knows that you’re the world’s foremost hacker?”
“Oh, a few people that I can trust,” he said, putting emphasis on the word ‘trust’.
“The NSA’s been hunting you down for years.”
“I can imagine,” he said, raising his brows.
“They have no intention of putting you behind bars if they ever caught up with you,” she said. “The NSA wants you to work for them.”
“Do they now,” he chuckled.
Yvonne was still looking at him in awe.
“Oh, and something else you might like to know,” he said. “Nate and I were sitting with JW in his office earlier. He had the bug that was planted in his suit jacket.” Sven was tactful enough not to point out that it was Yvonne who’d actually put it there. “We made our conversation sound very convincing. As far as Joseph Müller is concerned, Kubacki’s operation is somewhere in Missouri. That should keep his thoughts occupied for a while.”
Detective Frank Harris was looking forward to leaving this all behind. Only a few months to retirement, he was assigned all the investigations that no one else wanted. Unlike Amsterdam or Bangkok, Baltimore was hardly the most dominant red-light capital on Earth, but in his district alone, this was now the fifth similar homicide of the year. As much as he didn’t approve of prostitution, he recognised that very few went into this sordid line of work by choice. A mother would do whatever it took to ensure her child had food in its mouth. Harris truly hoped this latest victim didn’t have children.
Doing what was necessary for survival was bad enough, but no one deserved to die in such a brutal way◦– strangulation. Yet, that wasn’t the ultimate cause of death. Much like the petrified face of the young woman he was now looking at, all the others were also found in either their private or communal bathtubs with water in their lungs. They had been strangled while drowning. What a truly sadistic way to end the lives of such destitute women, Harris thought with remorse. What kind of psychotic monster could possibly get his thrills doing something like this?