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He waited to catch the plastic bin containing his laptop before it came clunking down the rollers of the conveyor and banging to a stop. He glanced back at the unsecured area. A familiar-looking man caused him to do a double take.

Captain Jack, in T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, was casually walking with a small crowd toward a sign reading PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, thumbing a message on a cell phone as he went.

[TWO]

Office of the General Manager

Lucky Stars Casino & Entertainment, Philadelphia

Monday, November 17, 10:30 A.M.

“Damn it! That is not what I asked for,” Nikoli Antonov snapped. He was on his phone as Dmitri Gurnov entered. “Call me back when you get it right.”

He slammed the receiver into its base on his desk, then glared at Gurnov.

“I really hope you have good news for me, Dmitri.”

Unlike Gurnov’s distinct, hard, old-world Soviet features, the dashing thirty-seven-year-old Antonov looked very Western European. He was of medium build, had dark hair trimmed short, and wore an expensive, nicely cut two-piece suit with a tie-less crisp white dress shirt. While Antonov certainly could speak his native Russian fluently, his early years of attending boarding school in Helsinki had left him with no detectable Russian accent. He generally was soft-spoken—Gurnov knew that his outburst just now would never have happened in public—an appearance that conveniently masked the fact that Nikoli Antonov could be utterly ruthless.

Behind him, a quad of twenty-inch flat-screens was mounted on the wall. They showed real-time images from closed-circuit cameras around the casino complex, every ten seconds cycling to a different camera view, including one that Gurnov saw was of him just now entering Antonov’s office. Gurnov saw himself looking at his cell phone—on which he’d been reading the text message “Mule headed uphill,” which Julio had forwarded from the cartel’s guy in Saint Thomas—then sliding the phone into his pocket.

There of course were at least ten times that number, and much larger screens, in the casino’s security office. But Antonov believed that keeping a finger on the pulse of the complex lessened the chance of surprises. He also knew it did not hurt for those working for him—including his security men, who often were among the first to be offered bribes to look the other way—to know that the boss himself could be watching over their shoulder at any time.

“Well, I don’t have any bad news, Nick.”

None that I’m going to tell you.

Starting with me having to fix what Ricky screwed up.

And another is you not knowing that my mule just made his flight.

You’ve never warmed up to my idea of using nonprofessionals to move product.

Antonov grunted. “Good enough, I guess.”

The phone on the desk began trilling softly. Antonov’s dark eyes darted to it, and when he saw its touchscreen display, he punched the speakerphone button.

“Jorge, my friend!” Antonov said, his tone now cheerful. “Good timing. I have Dmitri with me in my office.”

“Hey, Jorge,” Gurnov called out.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Jorge Perez said. “How are you?”

“You tell us,” Antonov said. “How did it go? I got your message, but Dmitri hasn’t heard. You can give us both the details.”

“In a word,” he said, his self-assured tone bordering on arrogant, “successful.”

“Details?” Antonov repeated.

There was a pause, then Perez said, “Well, the bad news is that we won the Poker Run. Worse, we did it with a damn royal flush.” He chuckled. “Where do you want your Mustang convertible delivered?”

“Why is that bad news?” Antonov said casually.

“Because everyone was joking that the whole thing had to be rigged, what with a casino’s boat winning the hand and all. If I’d thought that was going to happen, I would have played badly on purpose. But you know that I like to win.”

“Bad news? I’d say it’s exactly the opposite,” Antonov said. “The press release will spin it ‘Lucky Stars Casino Shows We’re All Winners.’ Or something like that. And we give the car to charity.”

“Now, that’s a good idea,” Perez said.