Robby was now moving. Climbing. Standing on something.
Facing the expansive lake, his body was silhouetted against the pluming, brightly lit white wall of water.
She pushed forward. “No!”
But her voice was swallowed by the spouting jets, the booming horns, and masses of people in front of her.
Vail figured she was the only one who saw the two men raise hand-guns. Not even she heard them fire their suppressed rounds. But the buck of the barrel was unmistakable.
AS ROBBY NEARED the strip ahead, the high-def billboards and neon glow of Las Vegas excess reflecting off glass everywhere, his mind sifted through various scenarios. A substantial obstacle remained: the two men assigned to kill him, held at bay by a natural barrier of hedges.
And coming up ahead, from the boulevard, another two sicarios, fighting their way toward him.
He turned and looked in the direction from which he had just come. Go back? He took a step, then stopped. No—even if he could fight his way through the crowd, the men on the other side of the hedges would arrive ahead of him.
He had mere seconds to figure a way out.
There was only one unblocked path: the water. He pushed a man and two women aside, then hoisted himself to the top of the cement wall—and felt the hot sting of a bullet slam into his left arm.
With no further thought required, he jumped.
It was a ten foot drop, and he hit the lake’s surface sharply, feet first. That wasn’t the problem—it was the cold water and the spray of the jets raining down on him as the show built in intensity. He no longer felt the sting of the gunshot wound. The chilled water had numbed it, and his urgent need to avoid any more lead spinning through his flesh pushed him to move forward.
He paddled his right arm and legs through the water, slamming into something rock hard and immobile. Pipes. When he’d jumped, he had apparently come dangerously close to landing on a portion of the extensive network of plumbing that spidered off into the distance, as far as he could see.
He hadn’t appreciated how expansive this body of water was until he was in it, enveloped in its cold grasp, no reachable land in sight. Swimming ahead would only take him into the middle of the lake, and make him an easy target for another gunshot—one that might find center mass. He pulled his body around and faced a series of arched aqueducts, which appeared to lead under the roadway he’d just traversed.
Wherever they led didn’t matter—it meant he would be out of the line of sight of the hunters who were determined to notch him onto their bloody cartel belts. He thrust his legs and right arm outward and pushed on, beneath the nearest stone archway, into the pitch darkness.
VAIL SHOVED AND PUSHED her way to the edge of the lake’s retaining wall. The rockets’ red glare was booming from the speakers. The nozzles were blowing tight streams of water fifteen stories into the air, and smaller walls of synchronized spray cascaded across her field of sight. And— what the hell?—a fog began spreading rapidly across the lake. You’ve gotta be kidding me. Fog?
She stood there, looking for Robby—for any sign of life.
She saw nothing. No blood. No floating body. No flailing arms. And the dense cloud enveloping the lake was making it nearly impossible to see.
What to do. How—where—
Along the lower end of the right side wall of the lake, arched aqueducts. The water flowed into them. But where did they lead? Had Robby swum through one of them?
Vail pulled out the tracking device, hoping it was Robby who’d been carrying the phone. A black screen stared back at her. If Robby had the cell, it would be underwater now, shorted out, no longer transmitting a digital or electronic signal.
It was clear the device would bring her no closer to locating him. She shoved LOWIS into her pocket and headed back the way she had come, into the hotel.
ROXXANN DIXON STOOD on the pedestrian overpass that connected the Via Bellagio shops to the walkway that led to Caesars Palace. On a lower level directly ahead, a permanent tented structure arced over a plaza that housed tables catering to the adjacent Serendipity3 eatery.
As she descended the steps, off to her left, her eye caught a flash of movement and the glimpse of a man who looked familiar.
César Guevara.
Looming over the immediate vicinity was one of the towering rectangular Roman-themed buildings sporting a red neon Caesars Palace sign at its upper periphery. Keeping her focus on Guevara’s last known location, she ran through the well-lit tented area, then along a narrow passageway that led to the hotel.
Tall, slender evergreens rose to her right, which bordered the intensely lit main entrance to the Caesars complex. Limousines and luxury sedans were parked beneath the long and broad overhang, where bellmen awaited the next approaching vehicle ferrying a tip-bearing arrival.
There! Beneath the bright lights of the hotel’s brick plaza.
Dixon took off in Guevara’s direction, pulling her Glock with her right hand and fumbling for her badge with the left. It did not say “federal task force officer,” and would thus carry no jurisdiction in Nevada. But it would have the intended effect. Those in the vicinity would know she had a legitimate reason for brandishing a pistol and running through the crowds.
Yet no one seemed to notice. Some glanced in her direction, but the density of people provided adequate cover.
Seconds later, Dixon burst through the crowd. Guevara was nowhere nearby. She turned in a circle, looking, hoping—and then saw him behind the dark glass of the main entry doors. She scaled the steps and shoulder-slammed her way into the lobby. She almost froze, taken by the grandeur before her: dramatic ceiling lighting and frescoes, rose quartz columns, blown glass chandeliers, black and ivory marble everywhere—and a central fountain that spouted water into a basin below three scantily clad limestone women.
Images of lavish, elegant opulence plowed through her brain, but she didn’t have time to process any of it because the lobby was more expansive than the eye could immediately comprehend. César Guevara was not stopping to take in the surroundings, nor was he evaluating its magnificence. He was moving at a rapid pace into the casino. And now, so was Dixon.
A violet, gold, black, and burgundy carpet extended throughout semiprivate and public gambling areas.
“Can I help you?” a security guard asked, eyeing first her badge, then the Glock.
“I’m following a suspect. Outta my way,” Dixon said as she edged around him.
“Hey—hold on a second—”
Dixon held up her badge. “Get the fuck out of my way!”
“You got a warrant? You can’t just walk in here with a gun—” he said, then maneuvered himself in front of her.
“I’m a federal agent,” she said, moving her head to see around him in hopes of catching a visual of Guevara. “Move!”
“That’s not what your badge says,” he said, then grabbed her arm. She was about to do something nasty to his closely held male compadres when she broke free, then shoved him hard into a crowd of youths passing by. He tripped backward and sprawled to the floor.
But as she moved on, she heard him key his two-way. Reinforcements would be en route—very shortly, she surmised.
Dixon moved deeper into the gambling areas, thick with people and the pungent smell of perfume and cigarette smoke. Guevara had to be around here somewhere. As her eyes roamed the large room, beeps and whirls sounding in her head off in the distance, she felt a creeping sense of anxiety. Had he gotten away?
Had she blown it?
VAIL PUSHED HER WAY through the crowd, then sprinted across the carport and into the Bellagio’s lobby. People of all ages milled about in seemingly haphazard activity. She needed to find someone who knew about the hotel.