Don Pendleton - Oceans Of Fire

“They’re getting ghosted,” James concluded. “SEAL style.”

“That is the current conclusion we’re working with.”

“I don’t like pulling the race card, David.” James’s eyes went hard. “But I don’t like being sent to hunt my own, know what I’m saying?”

“I can understand that, but we’re talking about a man aiding and abetting in heroin trafficking and selling little girls. There’s also the matter of two loose nuclear demolition charges. And if his name was Nigel Ian Smythe and former SAS, I’d be the one going in.”

James let out a long breath. “I hear you.”

“Zhol’s casino is called the Silk Road. When he’s in town he lives in the penthouse. Intelligence says Zhol is in town. It’s Friday night, so he’ll probably be in the house and Forbes should be with him. We need to arrange a meet-and-greet.”

McCarter gazed around the table. “Any suggestions?”

The game was Texas Hold’em. Calvin James was winning, and winning big. He stared coolly into the smoldering eyes of his remaining opponent. Everyone else had folded and it was James’s deal. The man in front of him was heavy-shouldered and wore a poorly tailored suit of local manufacture, and a short turban.

The man was a maniac.

In poker a maniac was a hyperaggressive player who raised, bet and bluffed big pots whether he had a great hand or nothing at all. A genuine maniac wasn’t a good player, though he or she could often dominate a timid table. Players who occasionally played maniac to confuse their opponents were quite dangerous.

James’s opponent was positively psycho.

The game had attracted a crowd. The Silk Road mostly attracted Russian businessmen and local women who were ready to be relieved of their hard-earned currency. A smattering of diplomats and ex-patriots rounded out the clientele. Onlookers gasped as the man in the turban shoved chips forward to the tune of ten thousand dollars. He leaned in and thrust out his jaw, daring James to match it. It was a form of tell, or a habit that gave away the strength of another player’s hand. The most amateur forms of tells involved leaning. People unconsciously leaned forward and projected aggressiveness when they were bluffing. By the same token they leaned back with unconscious relief when they were dealt a strong hand.

Psycho Boy might as well have put a neon sign over his head.

James’s piles of chips tinkled and spilled as he shoved ten thousand dollars forward. “Call.”

The maniac turned over his cards to reveal two pair, aces and eights, the Dead Man’s Hand.

James turned over his cards. “Four ducks.”

The man in the turban started stupidly at the four deuces on the table. James had cleaned him out, and reached for the pot. “Nice playing with y—”

“Cheat.”

The immediate environment around the table went dead silent. The man looked up from the cards with murder in his eyes. “You cheat.”

“Listen.” James held up both hands in peace. “I—”

“Blackie…cheat.” The man was literally vibrating with rage. “Every time you deal, you win.”

James took a calming breath. “Friend, you—”

“Cheating negro,” the man declared.

A mountainous pair of bouncers began moving toward the table.

James’s fist closed around his drink. “You know, not my country, not my house, not my cards. I don’t speak the language. Hell, I’m not even that good a player. I’m just lucky.”

“Luck!” The man spit the word.

“Yeah.” James leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Lucky to be sitting across from a loser like you.”

The man froze.

James took a dainty sip of his gin and waggled his eyebrows over his glass insultingly.

“Bismillah!” The man erupted from his seat. He screamed incoherently and grabbed the edge of the table. The crowd screamed as he heaved the poker table upward, flipping it over and sending chips and cards flying. “I kill!” the man shrieked. “Kill you!”

The bouncers descended, trying to smother the irate gambler with shear weight. The man in the turban seemed awkward, but his fist flew into one bouncer’s jaw and dropped him like he’d been shot. The other bouncer reached to grab the frothing man and was scooped up into a fireman’s carry, airplane spun and sent flying across the craps table. Furniture shattered and patrons ran screaming in all directions.

The demented gambler advanced on James, his fingers curled into claws. “Kill you! K—!”

James rose from his chair and flicked his wrist, sending two ounces of gin into his attacker’s eyes. Before the man could even react to the stinging liquor, the Phoenix Force commando’s fist pistonned three times in chopping right-hand leads. The first blow snapped the man’s head back. On the second, he turned his wrist over and jammed his thumb into the notch between the maniac’s collarbones. The man had no time to gasp as his throat compressed because the third punch took him in the solar plexus.

The turbaned man made a sucking noise and went pale. James grabbed him by his shoulder and spun him, seizing him by his collar and the back of his pants. He marched the blinking and wheezing man past cringing patrons to the front of the building.

He whispered in the maniac’s ear, “Sorry about this, Rafe.”

Encizo’s eyes rolled and drool came from one corner of his bloody mouth, but his voice was very quiet and lucid amid the chaos in casino. “No problem, amigo—”

James took two lunging steps for momentum and flung Encizo through the smoked-glass double doors. People outside the casino screamed as the Cuban flew to the pavement in a cascade of glass. He rolled to a stop and lay bleeding on the sidewalk.

“Punk,” James announced as he made a show of wiping his hands.

The cocktail waitresses were still screaming and casino patrons shouted in consternation. A pair of Indian businessmen stood clapping their hands delightedly at the show.

James smiled and took a bow.

Shotguns racked behind him. He put up his hands and very slowly turned. Clayborne Forbes was pointing a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver at his face. The weapon was a custom job, a product of the Smith & Wesson Performance Center. Its frame was made of titanium while the barrel and cylinder were stainless steel. James could clearly see the extra pair of holes that turned the revolver into an eight-shooter and the ugly lead cavities of the hollowpoints it had been stuffed with. For the average human, firing a Magnum with a two-inch barrel would be problematic at best.

Forbes didn’t look as though he’d have any problems.

He was even bigger in person, six-foot-four and built like an NFL tight end. His huge hand engulfed the grips of his pistol. Two more bloated, bearded bouncers flanked him, armed with enormous, 23 mm Russian KS-23, folding-stock shotguns.

“Well, goddamn.” Forbes blinked at James in surprise. Black men weren’t exactly common in Tajikistan. He lowered his revolver slightly. “You African or American?”

“African American.” James smiled. “Chicago, south-side born and raised.”

“No shit?” Forbes jerked his head toward a steel security door at the far end of the casino. “Follow me, Chicago.” He nodded at the bouncers. “Mukhtar, Askar, a round of drinks on the house and get this shit cleaned up, and find the brother’s chips.”

The two men lowered their shotguns and began shouting at the cocktail waitresses and the busboys. James followed Forbes into a standard casino security suite with banks of monitors watching the action at every table. Three security men stared up from their screens at James in open curiosity.

Forbes sighed. “Gonna have to relieve you of that piece.”