Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

He was bluffing, he didn’t have a room key. But Ryan couldn’t imagine the poised and refined woman in front of him taking him up on the offer. Even if she didn’t believe him. As bluffs went, he felt pretty good about this one.

He said, “I think you are the one who is bluffing. You won’t go.”

She did not reply to this. Instead, she said, “I Googled you today.”

“Really? Did you enjoy the pictures of a fourteen-year-old me with goofy hair and braces?”

Without smiling she said, “Very much so. Of course, I established you do work for Hendley Associates.”

“You didn’t believe that, either ?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she said, “There is really nothing bad about you online, but I am surprised how little news there is about you since you got out of college. It’s as if you went into the shadows after that.”

Now Ryan was beginning to get nervous. She was a spook, and spooks got suspicious easily. But he was surprised at the level on which she was challenging him. He wondered if she knew more about him than she was letting on, and if that had her concerned her intelligence operation had been compromised.

Jack just replied, “There’s not much news about me online for one simple reason. I am a bore. It works to my advantage. People get bored by bores.”

“You are asking a woman you do not know to come to a hotel room you do not have. That is strange, but I would not say it is boring.”

Ryan said, “You still don’t believe me?”

“Not for an instant. You need an excuse to follow me back to my hotel, so you claim it to be your hotel. You thought I wouldn’t question this. Perhaps you thought we’d sit and have another drink together in the bar there, before I took you up to my bed.”

“Presumptuous.”

“Experienced.”

Finally Ding came over Jack’s earpiece. “Room thirty-nine-oh-eight. Junior suite. Clark’s on his way to get your key at the front desk, and if you can stall her for twenty minutes Dom will have your shit moved from over here at the Mandarin into your room.”

Jack thought it was a bit hasty of Chavez to assume he was going to take this woman up to his hotel room. Hell, he didn’t even have the key, and he didn’t know how they could get it to him without her seeing the exchange.

Jack stood up and said, “Room thirty-nine-oh-eight.” Not denying her premise, but challenging her nonetheless.

For the first time, the woman smiled. “Okay, Jack Ryan, Jr. Let’s go to the Palazzo and see this room of yours.”

Jack hesitated. Oops.

Ding shouted into his ear, “Not yet. Shit! We are not ready!”

Jack asked a passing waitress for the check, and he hoped like hell she was extremely bad at her job and took a long time producing it.

46

The very second his cousin announced he was staying at the Palazzo hotel, Dom Caruso leapt to his feet in the suite at the Mandarin Oriental, ran into Ryan’s room, and began scooping up loose clothes, shoes, even his computer and peripherals, and he threw them haphazardly into an open rolling duffel on the floor. He then rifled through his cousin’s closet, took pressed shirts and a suit, wadded them into a ball and crammed them inside the duffel, threw in a dopp kit full of toiletries, zipped it up, and ran with it for the door. He slung a backpack go-bag of his own over his shoulder and left the suite.

The valet downstairs had the keys to the Mercedes E-Class the team was using in town. The Mandarin Oriental was about a mile and a half south of the Palazzo on the Strip, a significant distance in traffic, so Dom didn’t plan on waiting for the valet. As he rushed to the elevator he put the conference call with the rest of the team on hold on his phone, then dialed the saved mobile number to the head valet on duty tonight.

Clark had befriended the man, and a few of his coworkers, just after they had checked in.

The man answered and Dom spoke rapidly. “Andy, this is Bobby, Mr. Phillip’s nephew.” The team all had cover identities, and Clark had issued a standing order forbidding any of the team to say Clark was their dad; therefore he was always Uncle Joe, Uncle Pete, or Uncle “something” on their ops.

“Hey, bro. What’s up?”

“I’ll be there in three minutes. If my black E-Class is parked at your stand with the trunk open and the keys in it, I’ve got fifty bucks coming your way.”

“You got it, bro!” Andy said, and he hung up.

—

Clark was already in the Venetian, so he only had to head next door, which he did in a jog. It took him five minutes, and this got him there just five or six minutes ahead of Ryan and the Frenchwoman.

He went to the reception desk, skipped ahead of a couple of Japanese businessmen with several bows and professions of apologies, and picked up the two key cards to the junior suite on the thirty-ninth floor.

—

Ryan and Élise arrived at the front of the Palazzo at the same time a black Mercedes E-Class pulled up to the valet stand. Caruso climbed out just feet away from them, took his luggage out of the trunk, and followed them into the entrance.

Just inside the palatial lobby, Dom rolled by them and headed straight for the elevators like a businessman in some rush to get to his room.

—

In the main lobby, Ryan took Élise by the arm and stopped her. He nodded to a swanky lobby bar. “The bartender here makes an incredible margarita.”

The Frenchwoman just shook her head with a smile. “You’ve probably never set foot here in your life.”

Jack chuckled, still doing his best to give off the impression he was more fascinated by her mistrust than anything else. “No drink first?”

She shook her head again. “No, thank you. Are we going upstairs, or are you ready to give up on this charade?”

“Let’s go up. I can’t wait to see the look on your face.”

She shrugged. “After you.”

—

Just twenty-five yards ahead of Ryan and the Frenchwoman, Dom raced to a huge bank of eight elevators around a corner. Eight of the sixteen elevators reached floors thirty-seven through fifty. Clark had just entered a car twenty seconds earlier, but he’d left a key in a planter for Dom and told him where he’d dumped it. Dom snatched it from the planter, took the first elevator that arrived, and stepped inside. He noticed the car bypassed floors seven through thirty-six. He pushed the button for the thirty-ninth floor, and the car shot straight up, not stopping at all along the way.

John Clark took his elevator up to the second floor, and on the way up he took a small piece of tape, affixed it to Ryan’s card, and attached it to the buttons to the right of the door. As he did so he said, “Listen up, Ryan. When you get to the bank of elevators, the last one will come down to you. Take it. Your card will be taped to the keys to the left of the door.”

John pushed the button in the car to send it back down, then stepped out.

—

As soon as Ryan and Élise arrived in front of the elevators, the last one dinged and opened. It went against Jack’s sense of manners to enter before the woman, so he positioned himself on Élise’s left and entered just a half-step behind her. He swiveled his body to cover the buttons and saw that the room key card was lightly taped over the thirty-ninth-floor button. Jack easily popped it off and pressed his floor with the same movement, all while turning around to face her.

His hand went down to his side, and he reached into his pocket with the card in his hand, then pulled it out and held it up.

She stared at it in disbelief.