‘I want the bad blood cleared,’ O’Halloran said. ‘There’s a motel twenty miles out east.’
Mac looked at Kazakov as they began walking down a hallway towards the exit with Lauren, Kevin and Rat in tow.
‘I think you’d better take James with you,’ Mac said. ‘Word’s already out that he was the one who infiltrated the water plant and if he becomes a target I can see things escalating out of control.’
*
James woke at half-seven but the exhausted Kazakov snored on. The motel was peculiar, fitted out some time in the early eighties by someone who thought bright red plastic looked cool. The surfaces were dusty and the battery in the wall clock dead, as if they were the only people who’d stayed here in months.
James was starving and he wandered out into the morning sun. Their black Ford sedan was the only car parked outside of a room. There was desert in all directions and a two-lane highway without a car in sight.
His stomach led him to reception, which had a busted insect screen over the door and a stack of leaflets promoting visits to Area 51 and a couple of tacky local casinos.
‘Is there anywhere round here you can get something to eat?’ he asked.
The stringy old bird behind the counter looked up over half-framed glasses. ‘Got a Burger King about twelve mile east.’
‘Twelve mile,’ James said, unconsciously mocking her accent. ‘Nothing in walking distance?’
The woman looked up at him like he was stupid. ‘You see anything in walking distance? We got a vending area out back behind room sixteen.’
James found it and stuffed in quarters until he had a bottle of no-brand lemonade and a packet of Mini Oreos for his breakfast. Back in the room he took a shower and dried off on a towel so thin you could see your skin colour from the other side. He crunched his biscuits and made a bit of extra noise as he dressed, hoping that Kazakov would wake up; but the big Ukrainian was blissed out with an open mouth and a puddle of drool on his pillow.
James was impatient to get some proper food and thought about turning on the TV, but Kazakov might get annoyed if he was woken deliberately and he wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to wind up.
He felt fuller after the cookies and gassy soda, but the combo left a sickly taste in his mouth. The curtains didn’t do much to stop light coming in so he sat on his bed and re-read a couple of sections of his blackjack manual before getting out the cards and practising his card-counting skills. After half an hour he got the urge to pee, but when he looked around he saw that Kazakov had one eye open, staring right at him.
‘Hey,’ James said awkwardly. ‘How long have you been awake?’
Kazakov had done a lot of shouting over the previous two days and his voice was thinner than usual. ‘Twenty minutes, maybe.’
James smiled. ‘Just staring for no reason?’
‘There’s always a reason,’ Kazakov said, as he threw off his covers and sat up. ‘It’s interesting what people do when they don’t think they’re being watched. How’s it going?’
‘How’s what going?’
‘Counting cards,’ Kazakov said.
‘Hard to say,’ James said, ‘never having sat at a real casino table and seen how fast they deal. Or tried to keep track of cards with people moving in front of you and fruit machines bleeping. Book says it’s completely different to dealing out cards by yourself.’
Kazakov stood up naked and let off three pungent farts before gasping with relief.
‘Shit and a shower,’ Kazakov said, as James buried his face against the sleeve of his T-shirt to mask the putrid smell. ‘Then we find somewhere for breakfast.’
One thing Kazakov disliked about America – along with everything else – were the roads. He said the desert scenery was boring and the car’s suspension too soft so he let James drive.
They couldn’t stop for breakfast at the first diner they reached because it was the one where the owner had pulled her shotgun on the way out. Despite being starving, James didn’t even bother asking Kazakov if they should stop at a McDonalds drive-through and by the time they reached a reasonable-looking diner they were half way to Vegas and it was past noon.
‘Maybe I should call campus,’ James suggested, as he sat facing Kazakov across a custard-yellow table top. ‘Get them to sort out our flights home and stuff.’
‘Could,’ Kazakov said, his face so full of cheeseburger and fries that he could only manage one word at a time. ‘Only … I’ve got nothing on campus scheduled until the next basic training starts in ten days. What are you so desperate to get home for?’
James shrugged. ‘I thought you hated America and everything it stood for. In fact, you said those exact words at least five times on the ride here.’
Kazakov’s eyes narrowed. ‘I want my three thousand dollars back.’
‘Right,’ James laughed. ‘You don’t wanna start gambling again, boss. No offence, but I saw what happened at the Reef the other night. You can’t hold your drink and you’re a terrible loser to boot.’
‘But this card counting,’ Kazakov said, raising one eyebrow. ‘You said it works.’
James smiled. ‘It gives you an edge, but it takes a shitload of skill. I can’t get near to a table until I’m twenty-one and even if you’ve got an aptitude for maths, it would still take me days to teach you.’
Kazakov pulled the receiver unit he’d used to bug the Fort Reagan command centre from the pocket of his tracksuit top and thumped it down on the table.
‘I know basic blackjack strategy. I wear the camera; you watch the cards and signal me when I need to bet big.’
James’ first reaction was shock. ‘You’re tripping,’ he snorted. ‘I’d need a full view of the table and I’d never be able to read the cards on that titchy screen.’
‘It plugs into my laptop screen. The camera itself is high resolution. I didn’t know what I’d need so I brought a full surveillance kit: bugs, cameras, wide angles, telephotos, triggers, relays, signal units. It’s all in the car.’
James looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. ‘Counting cards in your head is legal,’ he said quietly. ‘But once you start using gadgets and cameras you’re cheating the casino and that’s criminal. I’ve seen the prisons in these parts and believe me, you don’t want to end up in one.’
‘I’m nearly fifty years old,’ Kazakov said determinedly. ‘I have no home, a small government pension. I’m not wealthy like Mac. I can’t afford to lose three thousand dollars.’
‘Gambling’s a mug’s game,’ James said. ‘You should have known better.’
‘Come
on
, James,’ Kazakov begged. ‘Where’s your spirit of adventure? I saw the look in your eyes when you were sitting on that bed dealing cards. Concentrating so hard, counting the numbers in your head. You want to try it now, you don’t want to wait for five years.’
Kazakov watched James’ expression and saw that he was tempted.
‘We have the best hardware,’ Kazakov continued. ‘You just count the cards and signal me when the odds are in our favour. Our equipment is CHERUB stock: state of the art. That camera is the size of a pin-head, the transmissions are so secure that no surveillance system could ever detect it.’
James knew he’d get kicked out of CHERUB if he was caught and possibly face criminal charges too. But Kazakov was right about the technology being better than anything regular casino cheats could buy off the shelf and everything that had happened lately left James feeling empty: the anti-terrorist mission going wrong, Dana dumping him, getting kicked out of Fort Reagan and the fact that he was sixteen and a half years old with the bulk of his CHERUB career in the rear-view mirror.
He needed a victory to get his life back on track and coming out of a casino with a big pile of dollars fitted the bill perfectly.
‘Maybe we could do a trial run,’ James said uneasily. ‘One of the smaller casinos. All the windows on that car are blacked out so I could operate from a car park.’
‘Good man,’ Kazakov said, reaching across the tabletop to give James a high five. ‘You know it makes sense.’
*
James wondered about himself as he drove on towards Las Vegas in the black sedan. He had a history of getting involved in half-baked schemes and winding up in trouble, but the weird thing was that he always had the appetite for another one. Being at CHERUB enabled him to channel these traits into training and missions and his appetite for risk and excitement was one of the reasons he’d been recruited in the first place. But what did it mean for his future?
When James looked at mates like Kerry and Shakeel he could see them as thirty-year-olds with a couple of kids who had their friends over for barbecues and spent weekends doing DIY. But he could never see himself that way. Maybe he’d use his maths skills to count cards or trade stocks and shares and get rich, but what if that didn’t work out?
James was smart enough to worry about what he was getting into, but by the time they pulled up in a giant shopping mall parking lot to sort out the equipment he was buzzing. Having Kazakov on his side helped enormously: the Ukrainian was impulsive, but he was smart and he’d fought and won battles with enemies a lot tougher than casino security guards.
They headed into a department store and bought Kazakov some less militaristic clothes: slacks, a white shirt, a blazer and a pair of sunglasses. Most importantly they bought a scarf. If a camera is pinned to your lapel or shirt there’s not much you can do covertly to change your viewpoint, but with the camera on a scarf hung loosely around your neck you can easily slide it up and down to get the best view of the table.
‘There is one thing I like about America,’ Kazakov grinned, as he buttoned his shirt. ‘They’re all so overweight you can buy my size anywhere.’
James thought America was cool and was bored of Kazakov’s sniping, but he didn’t say anything because he was in the back of the car linking the receiver unit up to the laptop.
‘What are you seeing?’ Kazakov asked.
James swung the laptop screen to face Kazakov. They’d fitted a fisheye attachment, creating an ultra-wide-angle image that was distorted around the edges.
‘The resolution’s superb, so I can pan and zoom and still read the cards, but you really need to sit in the middle seat at the table for me to have a decent chance of keeping count.’
Kazakov showed James the back of his watch, to which he’d stuck the vibrating signal unit. ‘You’ll be able to hear what I’m saying, but it’s too risky for me to wear an earpiece. We’ll need to work out a code.’
‘It’s better there than strapped to your leg,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll send two pulses when you should up the bet. Three when you should cut it. One long pulse means I’ve lost the count, two long pulses means there’s trouble.’
‘OK,’ Kazakov said. ‘We’ll have to work out separate signals for adjusting the camera up and down when I first arrive and during the game.’
James shook his head. ‘You’ve got to keep the camera on the game. If it drifts, I’ll have missed two or three hands by the time it’s sorted and I’ll have lost the count.’
‘I can’t sit completely still,’ Kazakov said. ‘It’ll look suspicious.’
‘You don’t have to sit there stiff as a board,’ James said. ‘Just don’t drift too far from your starting position or I won’t see all the cards.’
Kazakov opened the door of the car and put his foot down on the tarmac. ‘I’m gonna walk around with this thing before we hit the big time.’
‘Good idea,’ James said. ‘Go into a café, practise sitting still without making it look like you’re sitting still. I’ll give you a call to let you know how it’s looking from this end. Oh, and while you’re in there get me a coffee and a fruit salad from that stand in the food court.’
*
Over the next two hours James and Kazakov practised their moves until they were smooth. Kazakov could walk around with the camera in his scarf, sit down and instantly adjust the camera to a position that gave a wide view over several metres in every direction.
Card counting gives you a slight edge if you keep a simple count of each card dealt and the number of cards remaining in the dealer’s card shoe. But with Kazakov playing blackjack and visually checking on the number of remaining cards, James realised he could increase their chances further by keeping a separate count of the number of aces. He made calculations of the amount that Kazakov should bet by making a simple spreadsheet and running it in the right-hand corner of the laptop screen while the camera footage ran next to it.
Just before 4 p.m. James pulled into the parking lot of the Wagon Wheel Hotel and Casino. James handed over his five hundred dollars’ holiday spending money and felt queasy as he drew five hundred more on his cash card. Kazakov took James’ money to the casino cage and turned it into chips, along with two thousand from his credit card.
They’d parked in the most out of the way corner of the casino’s open lot and James sat in the back seat watching Kazakov walking past the lines of bleeping slot machines, searching for blackjack tables.
The Wagon Wheel was known as a locals’ joint. It didn’t have ten thousand rooms or a model of the Sphinx in the lobby like the big casinos on the Strip, but according to James’ book it did have some of the best two-deck blackjack tables in Vegas.
Playing with two decks instead of six to eight meant you had a bigger advantage when the cards were in your favour. It was also easier to see how many cards were left because the dealer held the decks in hand, rather than having them hidden inside a card shoe.