Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(73)

“No! That’s not what happened. Absolutely not—”

“Very plausible.”

“He paid my flight and my hotel. It’s small change to him. And Chris, he didn’t even ask me. He knew you were here. He knew already.”

I looked at him.

“I’m not lying,” he said.

It was turning into a playground spat.

I shrugged. “Thought better of you, frankly. Still—I’ll know next time.”

“Chris! I didn’t—”

“Mr. Copeland.” Ghirelli’s voice was quiet and level.

I said, “It’s a low trick. Fund-raising. Not the word I’d use . . .”

To Ghirelli, Silverman said, “Tell him.”

Ballington was yelling again, issuing orders, bellowing at this person and that.

The clutter bothered him. The mess. Like he could march in with his private army and expect the whole place pristine and neat.

“Mr. Silverman is quite correct.” Ghirelli was talking to me. The T-shirt might have looked ridiculous, but it made every muscle stand out. This guy did serious gym time. “Your phone, Mr. Copeland.”

“Yeah. And that’s another thing. I want my phone back, right now.”

“Your phone contains a small transmitting device.” He was very matter-of-fact. “I placed it there myself.”

“What?”

“Simple to attach. Considerable range. What you know, we know.” He nodded, a craftsman sharing secrets. “Who you’re meeting, where and when. I’m coming down. There couldn’t be a better signal.” He should probably have smiled then, but his mouth just wasn’t made for it. “Now—if you and Mr. McAvoy will come with me?”

Silverman looked at me. “I tried to tell you.”

We were moving off when Ballington called me back.

“Copeland,” he said. “You’re not done yet.”

“Oh, I’m done.”

“We had a deal. The terms can change at any time, but we still have a deal.” He put his head on one side, watching me. “You know the way it works. Survival of the fit. I told you that. And who’s fitter than me?”

“Fittest,” I said. “It’s fittest, you lunatic. It’s Darwin. Don’t you know that?”

He raised his hand. A flash of fire shot from his fingers. The heat burst over me. I stumbled backwards, smashed into a pile of chairs and sent them scattering across the floor.

An after-image floated in my eyes.

Ghirelli took my arm and helped me stand.

Ballington chuckled, mugging for the camera.

“We are so past Darwin now,” he said.





Chapter 58

Prisoners




There was an office on the second floor. Prints of race horses hung on the walls. To this, McAvoy and I were quickly escorted, and we joined the other refugees in what was, it became clear, a forced but amiable internment. There were guys from the casino here, watched by a handful of the Ballington crew. A card game was in progress. Shwetz had commandeered the desk, hunching up over his phone. His suit jacket was gone. His voice was scratchy. Every now and then it rose into a peak of irritation, bellowing across the room: “Then goddamn find it,” he was saying as I walked in. “Find it and fax it, can’t you?”

Eddie-boy perched on a filing cabinet, drumming his heels against the metal drawers.

He looked like a gargoyle in a cowboy hat.

“Chris! Hey, great to see you, man!”

On the floor, cross-legged, Angel sat. Her shirt was wet, her hair was plastered down. She glanced at Eddie and she rolled her eyes.

He, meanwhile, had spotted McAvoy.

He levelled a finger at him, closed one eye.

He made a gunshot noise. “You can run but you can’t hide, motherfucker.”

McAvoy said nothing.

I said, “Your old man’s got some explaining to do here, I think.”

“Relax, Chris. Take a seat.”

He jumped down from his perch, went to clap me on the shoulder but I moved away.

“It’ll all work out,” he said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of . . .”

I sat on the floor with Angel. She’d taken off her shoes and they lay beside her on the carpet. A little pool of water had spread around them.

“OK?” I said.

“Hurt pride. You?”

“I’ll live. Ballington Senior’s downstairs. I mean, what is this, anyway? Die Hard does Vegas?”

“Junior here says Senior’s bought the place. No one else agrees.”

“He’s bloody wrecked it, not bought it.”

Shwetz’s voice rose to an industrial pitch. “You will fucking find it for me now, you understand? Or I will personally sue you, you and your fucking company. Then I will come and break your legs. You hear?”

“That’s been going on for fifteen minutes,” she whispered. “He’s talked to his boss, his boss’s lawyers, about half a dozen other people.”

“Sounds like they’re giving him the runaround.”

Eddie had been listening in through all of this. Now he broke in, like he’d been part of the conversation. “I told him. You heard me tell him, right?” This last was to Angel. “Dad-o’s impatient these days. Lawyers. Paperwork. You know the saying, legal takes too long? Well, that’s Dad-o, sure enough.” He jerked a thumb at McAvoy, sat on a plastic chair and flanked by guards. “This guy, he’d have gotten clean away, we’d waited for the legal folks.”