To her left, a suited man with a brass nametag.
She dug out her creds and held them as she ran left, toward the bellman’s station, an ivory and gold counter that stood in front of a wall-size floral mural. “The fountains, the water—” She stopped, collected herself. Be coherent. “The water outside—the lake. There are arches, aqueducts that go under the roadway. Where do they lead?”
The bellman leaned back slightly and swung his head toward the front of the building. Apparently the answers weren’t there, because he turned back to Vail and shrugged. “I—I don’t know. I’ve never been asked that question. People usually want to know how often the fountains go off, how many stories into the air the water reaches—”
Vail swung her head around the lobby. “Anyone who might know?”
“You can ask at registration. They might be able to call a manager—”
With five long strides, Vail covered the distance to the nearby desk, which stretched across the cavernous room as far as she could see into the distance. She slapped a hand on the tan granite countertop in front of a woman who was checking in a guest, shoved her badge forward, and said, “The goddamn fountain—I need someone who can tell me where the water goes.”
The guest gave her a dirty look for being so rude—but the eyes of the hotel service worker were wide with shock and glued to Vail’s credentials case. She seemed to be reading every word.
Vail flicked it closed and snagged her attention. “A manager. Call a goddamn manager.”
The woman stumbled over some words, then reached for a phone and dialed. She spoke into the handset, then lowered it and said, “He’ll be up in a few minutes.”
“I don’t have a few minutes.” Vail pulled her radio. “Vail to Mann. Over.”
A second later, her two-way crackled. “Mann.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“We swung around to assist SWAT, why?”
“Those fountains at the Bellagio. Where do they lead? I mean, there’s gotta be pipes, right? Some kind of plumbing, machinery and computers or something that plays and synchronizes the jets to the music. Right?”
“Affirmative. One of the designers once showed me around. He took me down to ‘the back of the house,’ which runs underneath the entire property. Catering tunnels, a massive kitchen, the pump rooms and maintenance shop for the fountain, all sorts of shit like that.”
“Okay, listen to me. Robby jumped into the lake. He may’ve been shot but I don’t know. There are arches, aqueducts that look like they go under the roadway that leads up to the hotel.”
“Affirmative. Bellagio Drive, south area of the lake. But those aqueducts are fake. They don’t lead anywhere. Do you see him on the lake?”
“I’m in the lobby. There’s some kind of fog hanging over the water. I couldn’t see shit.”
“Part of the show. It’ll lift in a few minutes.”
“There were assholes shooting at him. If I’m Robby, I’m swimming like Michael Phelps trying to get away. The drop from the roadway is about a dozen feet; I don’t think there’s a way to climb up out of the water. Is there any outlet into the hotel? Any way in?”
“North side of the lake,” Mann said. “There’s an opening in the fake rock that leads into the maintenance shop for the fountain. I think they called it the Bat Cave. From what I remember, there’s a boat launching ramp that leads into the cave. It’s the only place he can go. Find that and you’ll find Robby.”
“How do I get there?”
“Ask how to get down to ‘the back of the house.’ The corridor will lead to the north end of the complex.”
“Got it. Over.” Vail shoved the radio in her back pocket and pivoted in a circle. Signs for everything except “the back of the house.”
She stopped herself from thinking like a woman looking for a hotel room and thought like a cop. She was in a casino, a place filled with surveillance cameras. And security guards. Security guards would know more about the layout of the hotel’s underbelly and hidden locations than a bellman.
She reached into her holster and pulled out her Glock, held it up in one hand and her creds in the other. Then she started yelling. “FBI! Everyone down!”
Screams. Movement. People hitting the floor. Now that’s more like it. Security should be here any second. Damn, I should’ve thought of this sooner.
Sure enough, two guards dressed in red blazers and black pants approached on the run, from the direction of the casino that fed into the lobby.
They were yelling at her, but that was a game Vail always won.
“FBI! Federal agent!” She made sure they saw her badge and credentials—because she had no idea if casino security guards were armed and she couldn’t afford any misunderstandings.
As they neared, Vail saw they were not packing. One was chattering on his radio and the other appeared to be unsure of what to do. She couldn’t blame him. This probably wasn’t something they’d ever encountered.
“I need one of you to take me to the Bat Cave. And I need someone to lock the place down. Tight.”
They looked at one another.
“Now!” She advanced on them.
That got them moving. The man to her left stepped forward and said, “Did you say the Bat Cave?” He asked it as if she had lost touch with reality.
“Yes, the Bat Cave. The back of the house. The maintenance area for the fountains.”
“Yeah—okay, The Shop. I can show you where it is.”
Vail swiveled to the other guard. “No one out, any exit. Only federal agents in. Got it?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Tell your boss we’ve got an emergency.”
The guard keyed up his radio.
Vail and the other man moved off, toward the lower reaches of the complex.
THE ARCHED AQUEDUCTS turned out to be dead ends. The lake was too far below ground level to even attempt to climb out, so Robby moved off into the framework of piping and water jets. He swam as best he could with one arm, following the plumbing as it led toward the other end, into a blue-tinted darkness.
Pipes meant a water supply—and that hopefully translated into some kind of apparatus that he might be able to use to climb out of the lake.
He was not sure where or how he had summoned the energy to go on, but thinking about seeing Karen again, holding her, caressing her, kept his arms and feet moving through the chilled waters.
At least the sicarios were not shooting at him. The fog that had provided him cover had evaporated from the lake’s surface. Was he out of range? Were they moving to a better perch? He couldn’t worry about any of that—he had to get out of the cold water. Not only was he feeling the effects, but he did not want to still be in the lake when the immensely powerful fountain jets rumbled to life again.
How long did he have?
Ahead, he saw something reflecting off the rock wall—no, not a reflection, and not off the rock’s surface; off an opening in the rock. A way out? He swam toward it—and about twenty yards later, he was able to confirm it was, indeed, something resembling a cavity of some sort in the stone wall. And the water appeared to be flowing in.
As he approached, a rumbling vibration built inside the pipe to his right.
The fountains.
But before they exploded into the air, the slap of water behind him snatched his attention. Movement. A body. He yanked his head around but never saw it. A blow to the face caught him off guard, like a truck broadsiding a car at an intersection.
Dark—
Dizzy—