“I’m on my way.”
We spend the next few hours in rehearsal, working in the lunch that Fionna brings down in between acts.
It’s four o’clock, and we’re planning to run through a few parts of the show one more time when Fionna calls to tell us what she found out about RixoTray’s research. “You’re not going to believe this, but they’re doing it at Fuller Medical Center. Right here in Vegas.”
Actually, I do believe it. This is just more confirmation that everything here is somehow tied together.
I already know that Emilio performed several benefit shows there, just as I have. I don’t know which charities he was raising money for, but I do know that he did events for the children’s wing.
A thought strikes me. It might be a long shot. I lay it out there anyway. “There’s a boy at the hospital with progeria; I’ve met him before. What if we set something up for tomorrow — a show for the kids. We can talk with the boy, see if he knew Emilio.”
“You think you can get permission to go see the patients on this short of notice?”
“That’s one of the assets I have,” I remind her. “Fame.”
I call the hospital administrator, and to say the least, she’s excited to have one of Vegas’s top magicians offer to perform a free event for the children’s wing.
“When were you thinking?” she asks me.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
A pause as she considers my offer. “We might be able to make it work. What time?”
“Noon or one. I need to be back here by four to get ready for the evening performance.”
“How about one, then?”
“Sure. That should work.”
“Some children won’t be able to be moved from their rooms.”
“I’ll stop by to do some close-up magic for them, as long as visitors are allowed.”
“Wonderful. I’ll make all the arrangements. It’ll be great to have you back, Mr. Banks. Everyone here is still saddened by the death of Mr. Benigno. Some of the children were rather close to him. It’s such a terrible tragedy.”
“Well, maybe I can bring a smile to some of their faces.”
We talk for a few minutes to nail down the logistics, then Seth, Nikki, Charlene, and I meet to work on the timing and the musical cues for the opening sequence to make sure things will run without a hitch tonight.
Heston woke up in the desert to the ringing of a cell phone by his side.
It took him a moment to gather his wits about him.
The last thing he remembered was standing next to Thad Becker, administering the lethal dose of—
The phone continued to ring.
They brought you out here. They left you in the desert.
He finally answered it. “Hello?”
“I’d suggest you run.”
“What?”
“Run. I need your help.”
“Who is this? What’s—”
“I’m zeroing in my rifle. I need you to run. It’ll make it more realistic.”
“No, listen, I—”
The dust less than a yard away from his foot exploded.
“Really, it’ll help me a lot more if you run.”
Heston scanned the desert but saw no one. There were scattered piles of rocks a few hundred yards away, but—
Another cloud of dirt burst to life beside him.
And Heston ran.
Colonel Byrne watched through his scope as Heston sprinted east.
He had the robotic hand with him, the base of it stationed next to the M4, the pointer finger of the hand pressed against the rifle’s trigger.
He’d never used his thoughts to manipulate the arm and fire a rifle before, but it was just like using his own hand. The rifle was on a turret that the hand could manipulate, and now he practiced tilting and aiming the gun.
Targeting the back of Heston’s head, Derek paused for a moment.
The brain does not die immediately. Even with a shot to a head, it takes up to eleven seconds for all of the synapses to stop firing, for everything inside someone’s consciousness to grow still forever. What was it like in those moments, having the swift and certain knowledge that you’re already dead but that your thoughts haven’t quite caught up with your body? What kind of feeling would that be? Knowing that you were not about to die, but in a very real sense already had?
Akinsanya wondered these things sometimes when he killed someone.
And in his past he’d had the opportunity to wonder these things quite a bit.
He depressed the trigger and Heston dropped.
There.
One problem dealt with.
And it was useful to know that he could use the hand to aim and fire the rifle. After taking a few more shots to zero it in, he left for his meeting with Tomás Agcaoili, the man who would be delivering the USB drive to him.
Tomás left the desolate building on the west side of town.
After meeting with Solomon, he decided it might be best not to face Akinsanya after all. The stories that Vegas’s most connected drug dealer and pimp told him convinced him that he would be better off not chancing it with Akinsanya.
He would settle for half of the money — the cash he’d already received. Sure, that would work. He would disappear and trust that he’d be able to evade the mysterious man who’d hired him to kill Emilio Benigno.
Jesús Garcia heard from his contacts in the Las Vegas Police Department and called the man he’d sent to Benigno’s house earlier in the day. From a little research, he’d found out that Jevin Banks and Xavier Wray had been in touch with the ambassador in the Philippines about a USB drive that they had.
They’d been with Emilio when he died. It was obvious what had happened.
“There were two 911 calls this morning about the break-in,” he said to Mr. Fred Anders, the gentleman he was blackmailing. “One from a neighbor, but the man you want is named Xavier Wray. He works on the crew of a show over at the Arête. You should be able to find him there.”
“And you promise that you won’t release the photos?”
“Get the drive from him and you’ll have nothing to worry about. I’ll call you later tonight.”
“What time does the show start?”
“It runs from 8:00 until about 9:30. I’ll call you at 10:15. I trust you’ll have what I’m looking for by then.”
“That’s not a lot of time. It’s not long enough.”
“It’ll have to be.” There was no reply. “Well?”
“Alright. I’ll talk to you at 10:15.”
Jesús Garcia hung up the phone.
He was a careful man. He always planned for multiple contingencies, and he wasn’t going to depend solely on Colonel Byrne to get him what he needed. What if the colonel didn’t come through for him from his discussions with the base’s engineer? Too much was riding on this for Jesús to chance a failure.
So, he’d put his own plan into play.
Everyone has secrets. Everyone has skeletons in their closet. The key is finding them and then making it clear that you’re willing to expose them.
After all, there’s nothing so powerful as a secret turned against the person who wants it kept quiet, and that’s what he’d done with one of the security personnel at Groom Lake.
Or Cammo dudes, as people referred to them.
Conveniently, it was a skeleton Jesús’s people had planted in his closet for him.
Somehow Emilio Benigno had managed to acquire the files, and now Mr. Fred Anders was going to get them for Jesús.
Calista Hendrix normally did not call her clients. It was almost an unwritten rule in her business. You wait for them to contact you. It was taking too much of a chance that their wife or girlfriend, or maybe even boyfriend, might answer the phone, and that would not be good for business.