The Austin Job (14 page)

FOURTEEN

Ballroom Games

The high ceilings and marble columns of the ballroom created a sense of lostness, a fear that one could lose his way between one end of the room and the other. But the aroma of Ms. Lloyd’s favorite coffee countered the feeling with a comforting warmth.

By the time Starr poured Daisy and himself steaming cups, the couple had spent half an hour greeting bankers, wildcatters, investors, tycoons and venture capitalists, including a young gentleman named Ponzi. Starr could swear he’d seen a mugshot of the man in the papers.

Overall the crowd represented a cross section of the upper echelons of American society. The glitter enamored him, even as he found the lack of sincerity repulsive. Starr caught Daisy’s eye with a wink as she politely shared her opinion on border relations for the third time.

Repeatedly, and in hushed tones, people referred to the happenings of the gala using phrases like “unfortunate” and “mysterious.” The topic surfaced like a fish rising in a pond, only to disappear, leaving nothing but ripples behind.

Through discussions of war in Europe, the Brown menace, the Motorcycle Mexican and the coming of federal prohibition, only those whose immediate loved ones had been reduced to charred remains littering the capitol lawn seemed genuinely effected. Even then, they had chosen to gather the very next day, anxious for the business at hand—the auctioning of the same weapons recently used against them. These were a breed of people Starr had not encountered previously. Involuntarily he wondered if he wouldn’t be more comfortable with Oleg’s ilk.

Starr smiled as Daisy directed the conversation toward him by raising the politics behind American isolationism. Addressing the shock in the older gentleman’s eyes, clearly taken aback by the attractive, young lady’s grasp on such masculine issues, Starr shrugged and clapped him on the shoulder. While he explained his hesitancy to drain American resources into wars abroad, he kept thinking about how right Oleg had been about one thing—the lusts of money and power seemed inextricably tied together.

The inane chatter continued for several minutes more, and just before an eccentric wildcatter could nail Starr down on his thoughts about the tenant farmer protests, Ms. Lloyd rescued him. Pulling him and Daisy aside, she spoke with low tones while maintaining a smile. “I allowed you in the door armed so you could keep on eye on Daisy and possibly myself, but you must promise not to go off half-cocked.” She leveled her eyes at him, waiting for a response. When she didn’t get one she continued, “My men will take care of Oleg.”

“Like last night?” Daisy was first to comment.

Ms. Lloyd took a deep breath. “Oleg is an evil man, and we all know he’s capable of planning something worse than last night.”

Daisy persisted. “Why would someone like Oleg want to show up for an event like this in the first place?” She batted her eyes, “If you don’t mind me asking.” Impressed Daisy had come to the same question he had, Starr regretted not asking it first.

Ms. Lloyd waved at a passing couple. “Don’t play games with me, Miss Lickter.” Starr felt like interrupting, like screaming.
Don’t play games? Lickter had explained the whole damn thing as a game
. But he bit his tongue. “Money is a temptation to Oleg, just not in the same way as everyone else. He’s not here to build a fortune. But the opportunity to destroy one?”

Ms. Lloyd directed their attention toward the corner near the entrance where her security guards were being joined by a growing number of brief cases, attendants, attaches and less subtle body guards. “The buy-in for this little auction is $250,000 cash. There’s more money in this room than the entire U.S. defense budget.” She rushed her speech. “Haven’t you heard the expression, ‘It’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar’?
 
Oleg’ll show, darlings, and our chances of shutting him down are better with him alive than as a martyr. Are we on the same page?”

Daisy feigned enlightenment. “Oh it’s so selfless of you to use your beautiful ballroom to set the trap.”

Starr cut her off. “Yes, ma’am. Stop the movement, not the man.”

“Good. We’re expecting him soon. I have to attend to the needs of my guests, so I’m counting on both of you. Watch him close. Look for any hints of what he might be planning. I imagine he’ll be bursting at the seams to brag in advance.” She glided away, moving in her characteristically rushed yet effortless manner.

Daisy cornered Starr, herding him toward the coffee before others could close in. “Don’t tell me you believe this hogwash. Don’t you find Ms. Lloyd an unlikely savior?”

“She’s in it for the weapons.” Starr dropped three sugars into a cup. “That’s what your dad told me last night.”

“You talked?”

Starr nodded. “I think Ms. Lloyd must be yanking his leash too hard. He’s still not telling me everything, but he showed me a map of the tunnels.”

“Really?” She ran her fingers through the short hair hanging over his collar and straightened his tie.

“He thinks Oleg will use them to gain access to the building. The bank vault’s in the basement.” He watched her take the new information in stride, processing it twice as fast as he had.

“They want him to.” Daisy nodded to herself.

“Who? Wait, what?” He quizzed her.

“Really, James. You need me worse than I thought.” She winked as she led him swiftly away from an old-money couple invading the coffee table. “G.W. and Ms. Lloyd want Oleg to take the money, or better yet, destroy it. You heard her laying it on thick. They’re using Oleg to do their dirty work.”

“That explains not going after him directly.” He sipped his coffee as she continued.

“This auction, Oleg, all of it. It’s about getting at the competition.” She indicated the crowd at large.

“I don’t know. Wouldn’t the bank be on the hook?”

“Well, what do you think?” she asked.

“What do I think?” He stirred his coffee, surprised by the question. He glanced at the collected wealth in the corner, took in the palpable anxiety and excitement sparking across the ballroom, remembered the horror from the evening before. He felt the weight of the .38 hugging his side. “I think terrible things are going to happen and people are going to die, some innocent and some not.”

~~~

“My father and I welcome you to the Grandview ballroom.” Ms. Lloyd spoke into the same microphone Starr had used the morning before, instantly grabbing the attention of the gathered elite. “Please keep eating and enjoying yourself. But as the time draws near for our main event, I’d like to remind ya’ll of a few procedurals.”

“Your entrance fee will be held here in plain view for the entirety of the auction. On completion of the auction all entrance monies, along with additional expenditures above the initial $250,000, will be held in the bank vault until tomorrow morning when payment will be delivered and unspent funds shall be returned to the losing bidders.” She paused, smiling. A few snickers rose from the crowd.

“Sorry to put it so bluntly, but we all know why we’re here.” She smiled again. “For your peace of mind you are invited to send a single representative to accompany your money into the vault. Sorry, no camping allowed.” A few more snickers. “Our guest of honor, Professor Yuri Medved, shall arrive shortly. Until then, enjoy your meal.” A storm of hushed whispers swirled around the room punctuated with mentions of “Dr. Death” and the “Mad Russian.”

Starr and Daisy had been seated at a table with a vocal grandson of a Southern general from the War of Northern Aggression, a quiet venture capitalist from Nevada, a wildcatter from central Texas and their wives. The wildcatter kept probing Starr about the new expanded role of the Railroad Commission in hopes of finding an ally in the Senate, but as a first-termer he hadn’t a shot at such a plum committee. As governor he’d shift the responsibilities to the executive branch to silence special interests exactly like this one.

Without being impolite, he tried to keep focused on his surroundings. Since Ms. Lloyd’s speech most of her guests seemed to lose their appetites. Either they were anxious to get their hands on newfangled weapons of destruction, or possibly some were beginning to wonder about the connection between the auction and the mysterious human combustions the night before.
Wake up and smell the burning flesh
.

A tussle at the ballroom entrance drew everyone’s attention. His heart raced as his hand involuntarily reached for the .38. He tried to stand, but Daisy tugged him back into his seat. Annoyed, he landed on his wounded cheek and flinched with pain. His next thoughts were for Daisy.
She shouldn’t even be here. What if Oleg tries to blow the whole place up?

Four muscle-bound students entered the ballroom first, their ill-fitting sack suits bulging. Two of them carried small cases while the other two carried a large trunk between them. Starr craned his neck to see across the crowded room. They’d been seated close to the stage but far from the door. Next, the girl called Oleander entered holding a cage draped with a white cloth. Last came Oleg, dressed in exactly the same outfit he’d wore to breakfast the day before—elbow patches and faux pockets.

Small and unimposing, his gestures contained an almost grandfatherly kindness. He nodded and smiled, tipping the unadorned derby on his head. The gawking elite dropped their jaws at his passing like wake from a boat. The great genius, the engineer of wonderfully terrible machines of war and weapons of death—banished from Russia, wanted by a dozen nations. This was their once in a lifetime opportunity to own exclusive rights to Oleg Rodchenko’s latest inventions.

The lust hung from the air so thickly it condensed and ran down Starr’s temples and neck in the form of perspiration. All he saw was a smug, arrogant man playing his audience like a juice harp—a man sowing destruction by fire and reaping death from Texas soil. As Oleg neared the stage, along with the table where he and Daisy sat, Starr’s finger itched worse than the scar on his cheek. He wasn’t a marksman by any means, but from this range one shot could end it all.

Couldn’t they round up the students from his classes? Close down campus for a few days? The local law had to be good for something, even without the Rangers. Why should he let this monster leave the ballroom alive? But before he could answer his own questions, the man began to speak, laying his Ukrainian accent on thick.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Pardon my lack of elegant speech, but my broken English is better than your Russian,
да
?” The frozen layer of awe gripping the crowd slowly thawed, people nodding and laughing nervously as they regained their composure.

“No doubt some of you have concluded my involvement in last night’s festivities.” Shock rippled outward again. Oleg shrugged as Starr watched for any hint of motive or clue revealing the man behind the actions. “How do you say, good riddance to bad trash.” Oleg smiled. “Besides, now you know I deliver what I promise.” Confused, the crowd was in his spell.

He nodded at one of the students, who ascended the stage and opened his box. “This is weapon used last night.” The student lifted a plain looking metal tube, just like the one he and Daisy had seen disappear into the tunnel. “Gas-powered lithium incendiary projectile. Quiet, covert, deadly up to forty meters.”

He nodded again, and Oleander placed a glass of wine on top of the large trunk sitting on the edge of the stage. The burly student aimed the weapon before depressing a button on its back end. A second later, with barely a pop, the weapon launched a brilliant bullet directly into the glass. In a fiery display the glass shattered and leapt. Licked with flame, the shards spread across the stage as gasps spread across the room.

Oleander stepped forward with an extinguisher and quenched the fire. The student put the weapon back in its case and took out another. “How many men will die in Europe and Asia before war is over?” Oleg reclaimed the audience’s attention. “But in future, war need not be fed on blood of hundred’s of thousands. Strike tactically. Strike terror into hearts of enemy, break spirit and save lives.” The student took a small cylinder from the crate and attached it to the end of the shotgun in his hands. “Create deception, surprise, chaos.” He pumped a shell into the chamber.

Starr tensed.
What prevented Oleg from simply opening fire on them? Nothing.
But out of greed and lust they handed a madman armed with more firepower than a donkey could carry across the Rio Grande a willing audience of his most despised enemies. He sat with his arms crossed, his right hand resting on the handle of the .38.

The student pulled the trigger, peppering the ceiling with birdshot, but the expected noise of a 12-gage shotgun fired indoors had been cut dramatically. He wouldn’t have heard it amid a crowded street. Starr caught a furious expression on Ms. Lloyd’s face as Oleg continued, dust drifting down from her ornate, plaster roof.
Maybe now she won’t mind if I shoot him
.

“That is standard 12-gage birdshot.” The student pumped another shell into the chamber, as a second muscle-bound youngster tugged a steel plate from the side of the trunk to leave it protruding from the top. “This is special incendiary round using sodium.” The student pulled the trigger, releasing a muffled
fwop
against the metal plate. Then a secondary reaction sparked to life, fizzing and popping like children’s fireworks. Suddenly a larger surge of chemical light flared from the plate, splitting it completely in half.

“Good Gawd,” the Southern general’s grandson mumbled to Starr’s right. “That thing’d split an armored car in twain.”

Oleg took over. “Prove to enemy they have no hope. Reduce prized machines of war to dust and end war before it starts.” He pounded his fist on the podium, then nodded toward Oleander. Starr looked on with increasing horror, the rest of the audience already pulling out their ledgers and priming their pens. Whatever Oleg had in store, it would happen soon, at the apex of the audience’s yearning. He’d orchestrated the whole grizzly show, and people where going to watch it right down to their own deaths.

Oleander yanked the cloth off the cage, revealing three white rabbits. Clutching one by the scruff of its neck, she placed it on the trunk while two of the burly assistants unpacked the second, smaller crate. Adeptly, they assembled a series of reflectors creating a concave shape surrounding what looked like a carbon arc light. Finally they attached a cone to the front to encase the entire light and plugged the device into a wall socket.