His Aerostich Transit Leather motorcycle jacket did double duty, covering the weapons and adding a layer of ballistic armor installed by the national security advisor’s special team at DARPA known as the Shop.
Quinn threw the rest of his clothes and gear in a bag for Garcia to pick up, and made it to the Denver airport in time to hop the afternoon Southwest flight to Las Vegas. He wasn’t allowed to sleep on the plane since he was armed, but wouldn’t have been able to anyway. Closing his eyes when surrounded by a hundred strangers had never been something Quinn could bring himself to do. Reading was out of the question since the shooting, so he sat and stared at the seatback in front of him, letting his mind drift and his body metabolize the residual adrenaline.
The flight squawked onto the tarmac at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport just under two hours later. Quinn’s cabbie was a talkative Romanian named Tiberius who gabbed about his large family and the tremendous opportunities offered by the “U.S. of A.” nonstop during the fifteen-minute ride to the Strip. Quinn gave him a good tip, which, of course the patriotic jabbering had been intended to induce, and got out of the cab in front of the Bellagio, down the boulevard from Caesars Palace so there would be no record of him being dropped off there.
Once Tiberius was safely on his way, Quinn walked into the Bellagio’s spacious lobby and turned right under the kaleidoscope of flowers that hung like an inverted glass garden from the ceiling. Walking easily but with purpose, he could feel the eyes of countless security cameras on his back as he cut this way and that to make his way through the maze of tourists. He counted at least a half dozen different languages from all nationalities — many of them Chinese. Glancing up at one of the small black domes on the ceiling above, he remembered the line from the movie Ocean’s Eleven—someone was “always watching” at the Bellagio.
He popped out to flashing neon lights on the north side of the casino and breathed a sigh of relief to be back outside again, even if it meant leaving the crowded hotel for a crowded street.
It was warm, even for Vegas in the winter, though the sun had been down for nearly an hour. Taillights flashed and dimmed on stop-and-go traffic that backed up Flamingo Road all the way to the Las Vegas Strip. Quinn was able to trot between a bumper-to-bumper phalanx of two black stretch limos, a canary yellow Ferrari, and a pearl white Hummer to reach the great cluster of bone white buildings that made up Caesars Palace Casino and Forum Shops.
Looking for any one guest who happened to be staying at a hotel as large as Caesars Palace would normally require a good deal of time and a large surveillance team, but Quinn had an inside man — Adam Norton, of Drake’s Capitol Police protective detail the year before. Officer Norton had pulled Drake’s dead wife from the Potomac River and had a strong suspicion that she’d been murdered. He knew the Speaker’s tastes along with his secrets. Of course, he’d been summarily kicked off the detail shortly after the incident, but Quinn had kept in contact with him for just this sort of event.
As Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hartman Drake was allocated a small protective detail of Capitol Police officers when he traveled. According to Norton, he liked to keep them at a distance during his visits to Vegas so he could spend time with a certain Puerto Rican escort he’d taken up with since his wife had been killed. In the world of dignitary protection, there was often a sort of cat-and-mouse game played by the protector and protectee. People wanted and needed space — but it was that space that could get them killed. It was the detail leader’s job to figure out just how much space was possible to give and still keep the protectee safe from harm or embarrassment.
Quinn made his way through the entry off Flamingo Road, past the bellmen and row of perky clerks at the Diamond VIP check-in desk. He strolled through the Palace casino like a tourist, eyes peeled for Drake. Norton had said the Speaker had a thing for blackjack, and since this was his last evening in Vegas, Quinn assumed that he’d be at the high-stakes tables.
Failing to find Drake anywhere in the Palace section of the enormous gambling complex, Quinn ducked down a narrow, dimly lit hall of dark paneling and crushed velvet cocktail tables, passing under the bulbous wooden breasts of Cleopatra’s barge that hung over the walkway. The din of the crowds and rattling ping of slot machines grew louder as he neared the Forum casino floor.
Quinn’s gut knotted when he finally saw the Speaker. He thought of Kim, of all the blood, and of Mattie, the sniper’s intended target. Pausing to take a slow breath, he pushed any notion of instant revenge to the back of his mind and studied the situation. Palmer was right. There was much more to this than a simple assassination. Otherwise, Quinn knew he would have been the target.
Hartman Drake was seated at the nearest blackjack table, a fat cigar clenched between his teeth. Extremely fit, the Speaker spent several hours each day in the House gym and picked his clothing to show off broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore faded blue jeans and a tailored white shirt. Absent his trademark bow tie, it was open at the collar. A gold Rolex hung from the cuff of a navy blue blazer. Behind a cloud of cigar smoke, a derisive smile smeared across his mouth. He was winning.
Quinn kept walking toward the sports book lounge. He ordered a Bacardi and Coke from a roving waitress and watched the Hispanic woman pressed in close beside Drake. She was young, maybe twenty-two, with expressively dark eyes and a wide mouth, heavily covered in crimson lipstick. Gray tights clung like a second skin to slender legs. A bloodred minidress hung off petite shoulders. Her manicured hand, matching her lipstick and the dress, rested on a cocked hip.
Twenty feet away a blond Capitol Police officer with the earnest look of an Iowa farm boy loitered beside the bank of slot machines. A light golf jacket and khaki slacks helped him blend in some with the crowd of gamblers, but the flesh-tone earpiece and clear pigtail radio wire that disappeared at the back of his collar were dead giveaways. The slight bulge on the right side of his jacket would be his Glock. Pale blue eyes looked over the casino floor with mixture of boredom and disgust.
A second agent, older, with an air of experience, sat at a small table near the Forum entrance, nursing a cup of coffee while he watched the crowd.
Quinn’s source said no one on the detail cared much for Drake. They were, however, honor bound to protect him and would give their lives to do so. But in order for them to do that, the protectee had to cooperate in at least some respects.
The Hispanic escort’s hand moved across Drake’s shoulder, caressing, but urging him to hurry. He gave an annoyed shrug, brushing her away. She let her hand drop and dug her toe into the carpet. The four-inch stiletto heel arced impatiently back and forth.
She was getting bored.
Quinn smiled within himself. This was going to be easier than he’d imagined. He knew Drake was staying in the Augustus Tower, but had no idea which floor or what room. He couldn’t very well ask the protective detail, and that same detail would make it nearly impossible to follow the Speaker without hurting one of the good guys.
But now he wouldn’t have to follow the Speaker. He could follow the escort. It was a good bet the call girl had a room nearby, probably on a different floor, so he could sneak away from his detail without having to go very far. She’d leave first — and since Drake was winning, he’d let her.
CHAPTER 8