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After explaining his destination to the driver, he sat back and waited.
A few minutes later, the driver pulled up in front of the tallest hotel in Las Vegas. Truitt paid the fare and climbed out. Then he walked into the lobby, purchased a ticket and rode a high-speed elevator to the hotel’s observation deck. The entire city of Las Vegas was stretched out beneath him.
Truitt stared at the view for a few minutes, then walked over to one of the viewers and inserted a few coins. While most of the other tourists scanned the high-powered binoculars from side to side, Truitt kept his trained on just one spot.
ONCE THE RECONNAISSANCE was completed, Truitt rode the elevator down, hailed another cab, and returned to Dreamworld. It was still a little early, so he went to his room and took a nap. It was just after midnight when he awoke. Brewing a pot of coffee using the pot in the bathroom, he sipped the cup to help himself wake up. Then he shaved, showered again, and walked back into the room.
Digging into his bag, he removed a black T-shirt and black jeans and dressed. He removed a pair of rubber-soled black shoes from the bag and slid them on his feet. Then he repacked his bag and called the bellman to have it delivered to the front door. Gunderson had been told to pick it up in ten minutes. Before leaving the room, he removed a strangely padded jacket from his bag and slid it over his shoulders. After taking the boat to the lobby, he entered the casino.
Groups of vacationers, eyes red from lack of sleep, filled most of the seats at the tables and in front of the slot machines. Even this late at night the casino was a moneymaker. Continuing on through the casino, he entered the mall inside the hotel.
The mall was a cornucopia of excessive consumption. Nearly seventy-five brand-name stores and boutiques were located along a cobblestone walkway. Along with the twenty or so designer clothing stores were shoe shops, a luggage store, jewelry shops, restaurants and a bookstore. Truitt still needed to kill some time, so he entered the bookstore and flipped through the newest Stephen Goodwin novel. Goodwin, a young author from Arizona, had spent the last few months at the top of the charts. Truitt could not carry a book right now, but he made a mental note to pick up the novel before he left Las Vegas. Leaving the bookstore, Truitt entered a barbeque restaurant and ordered a plate of ribs and an iced tea. Once he finished those, he decided it was time.
HICKMAN’S PENTHOUSE HIGH atop Dreamworld featured decks on all four sides. Glass walls that slid back allowed entrance to the decks, which had a forest of carefully trimmed trees in pots. The pinnacle of the penthouse was pyramid shaped, with a copper roof still new and gleaming. Tiny pinlights lit the trees and pinnacle.
Riding the elevator up to the next-to-highest floor, Truitt recalled the building plans. Exiting the elevator, he peered down the hallway and found it empty. Then he walked to the far end of the hall and found a white metal ladder bolted to the wall. Truitt climbed the ladder until it ended at a door locked with a padlock on a clasp. Taking a plastic sleeve from a pouch in his pocket, Truitt slid the thin shaft into the lock and twisted a small knob on the top.
The knob released a catalyst that made the plastic sleeve harden inside the lock. A few seconds later, Truitt twisted the shaft and the lock sprung open. He removed the lock from the clasp, opened the door upward into the crawl space and climbed inside.
The plans had called this area a service access walkway. Cables for power, plumbing and communications filled the space. Truitt closed the door again and turned on his flashlight. Slowly he crawled down the walkway toward where the plans showed another door that led up to the deck.
When observing the deck from the other hotel, Truitt had noticed a sliding door cracked open. The open door was his best chance to enter the penthouse undetected. Reaching the door beneath the deck, Truitt used another of the plastic sleeves to open the lock, then carefully swung it up and peered out.
There was no alarm, no indication he had been detected.
Keeping low to avoid being seen, Truitt climbed out onto the deck, closed the door, and crept toward the still-open door. Prying it slowly back, he peered inside. No one was visible—and he carefully entered.
Truitt was in the huge open living room of the penthouse. A half-round sunken conversation pit with padded benches encircled a rock fireplace. Off to one side, lit only by a light above the stove, was a commercial-style kitchen. To the other side was a massive wet bar with beer taps mounted into the wall. The room was lit by unseen lights into a sort of twilight. Bluegrass music played through invisible speakers.
Truitt crept down the hall
toward where the plans showed Hickman’s office.
28
THE LARISSA LIMPED into the Isle of Sheppey and tied up to the dock. The captain took his forged documents and walked up the hill toward the customs shack. A man stood at the door locking up for the night.
“I just need to note arrival,” the captain said, showing him a paper.
The man unlocked the door again and entered the tiny shack. Without bothering to turn on the lights, he walked over to a chest-high table and removed a stamp from a rotisserie on the top. Opening an ink pad, he wet the stamp and motioned for the sheet in the captain’s hand. Once he had it, he placed it on the top of the table and stamped it.
“Welcome to England,” the customs official said, motioning for the captain to walk back outside.
As the official started to lock the door again, the captain spoke. “Do you know where there is a doctor nearby?” he asked.
“Two blocks up the hill,” the customs official said, “and one block west. But he’s closed now. You can visit him tomorrow—after you’ve come back here and made full declarations.”
The customs official walked off. The captain returned to the Larissa to wait.
TO THE REGULARS at the waterfront bar on the Isle of Sheppey, Nebile Lababiti must have seemed like a gay man looking for a lover. And they didn’t like the implications. Lababiti was dressed in an Italian sport coat, shiny woven silk pants and a silk shirt unbuttoned to show a neck encircled with gold chains. He smelled of hair pomade, cigarettes and too much cologne.
“I’d like a pint,” he told the barkeep, a short, muscled and tattooed man with a shaved head who wore a grimy T-shirt.
“Sure you don’t want a fruity drink, mate?” the barkeep asked quietly. “There’s a place up the road that makes a mean banana daiquiri.”
Lababiti reached into his sport coat, removed a pack of cigarettes and lit one, then blew smoke in the barkeep’s face. The man looked like an ex–carnival worker who had been fired for scaring the customers.
“No,” Lababiti said, “a Guinness would be fine.”
