But the driver, Mordecai, nodded. “There’s no use cowering in fear. Arrangements can be made.”
Ueli snapped at him, “Encouraging the principal to make reckless decisions is not part of the job description.”
I’d personally hired Mordecai into my security detail a few months ago. He’d griped to me on a car ride the prior week about still being the Fucking New Guy in the group, though Dusha was warming to him. Mordecai had grown up in an ex-industrial town in Massachusetts and attended an academy-style highschool that fed into the HBCUs, but he’d enlisted at seventeen instead, eventually ending up in the Army Rangers.
He shrugged one thick-rounded shoulder under his dark suit jacket but didn’t turn his gaze from the road. He spoke authoritative sentences with a bass, steady voice. “Staying here doesn’t seem reckless. We control a lot of the variables. I’ve been in worse situations for less money, just sayin’.”
Ueli scowled. “We should retreat to Paristoday.”
Lexi piped up, “Is that what you usually do when if it gets too dicey? Go back to your apartment in Paris?” She whispered to me, “You said you lived in Paris most of the time.”
“Yes,” I told her. “We often decamp to my primary residence, which is Paris. The security cameras and equipment there are top-notch.”
“Then isn’t that what they’d expect you to do?” she asked. “How do you know they aren’t herding you toward Paris, and it’s a trap?”
“Yes, Ueli.” I leaned forward. “How do we know we aren’t being manipulated? Paris might be the predictable move.”
“We don’t know.” His gray eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “In my professional opinion, a significant attack by the Russian national intelligence is more likely to take place here in Las Vegas than in Europe.”
“On American soil?” I pushed him. “You don’t think European security services, like the French, are more likely to turn a blind eye to a small, insignificant assassination?”
Ueli still held a grudge against the French for surrendering to the Nazis in World War II as if he were British instead of officially neutral Swiss. “We have mission protocols for a reason.”
“I’m a person, not a mission,” I told him. “Mordecai, continue to the original destination to meet Clemmy’s detail. Our schedule remains firm.”
“Yes, boss,” Mordecai said and spun the wheel to turn the SUV onto the Strip and toward the Birkin location.
“I advise against this,” Ueli said, his voice rising.
I held Lexi’s hand more firmly. “Noted.”
CHAPTER 9
shopping with clementine
LEXI
Clementine yanked open the door on my side of the SUV, grabbed my arm, and hauled me out of the back seat like a bin full of sand-bag counterweights.
“Hey!” I bobbled and slapped a hand on the stinging-hot metal of the black-painted SUV, and then I pulled my hand right back and shook the burn off. “What the heck!”
Nechtan-the-bodyguard stood beside and behind Clementine, black sunglasses covering his eyes as he scanned the crowd thronging the sidewalk around the drop-off circle, milling at the casino entrance, hanging over the railing around the roof of the mall, darting to toss drink cups into the stone trash cans bigger than whiskey barrels, skirting the wide pillars holding up the metal sunshade three stories above, and basically lurking everywhere except near us.
“What the hell happened back there?” Clementine demanded, pointing in the general direction of Billionaire Sanctuary as the chattering couples and groups flowed towardthe casino entrance on the left, giving us a wide berth. Their chattering and harsh yells bounced off the metal sunshade above and the marble walls of the mall to the right. “Dushaaccostedme but won’t say why!”
Past her slim shoulder, Dusha stepped out of the front seat of the other SUV, glaring at us at first but then scanning, watching, analyzing the crowd patterns and environment.
My muscles were still vibrating, wanting to run. “Something happened with Nicolai up in the suite after we all left. I’m not sure what went on. Ueli said something about a Code Blue, and then all heck broke loose.”
Her pale, cirrus-clouded sky eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “What the hell is a Code Blue?”
“I don’t know!”
Nicolai came around the back corner of the SUV, trailed by a new-to-me mercenary. “It means an attack was neutralized, but a threat remains ongoing.”
The new guy stood at parade rest, tree-trunk legs braced, arms ready at his sides, and slid a long look over the people meandering on the sultry sidewalk. His voice was deep bass. “It means someone let the fucker get away.”
Ueli snapped, “Davis!”
