The Eye of God (Sigma Force 9)

So how did she expect—?

Seichan wiggled out of her sweater vest and tossed it aside. She then ripped open her silk blouse, popping buttons across the floor, exposing a black bra, revealing the flat curve of her stomach. She pulled a tail of her shirt out of her jeans and disheveled her hair.

“How do I look?” she asked.

Gray was speechless—and for once, so was Kowalski.

She rolled her eyes at them, turned, and slipped out the door. “Hang back until I get someone to unlock a security gate.”

Gray took her place at the door.

Kowalski clapped him on the shoulder. “You are one lucky bastard, Pierce.”

He wasn’t about to argue.

2:14 A.M.

Ju-long Delgado cursed his bad luck.

He stood before the plasma screen in his office, staring at the smoking hole blasted through the floor of the VIP room. He wanted to blame such misfortunes on the comet in the sky, but he was not a clinger to such superstitions. He knew the true source of his grief.

He had simply underestimated his quarry.

That would not happen twice.

A few moments ago, he had watched the larger of the two men detonate the explosive device—then he could only stand idly by as the trio made their escape, like rats down a hole.

The room’s only remaining occupant huddled in a corner.

Dr. Hwan Pak.

As he stared at the North Korean scientist, Ju-long tapped a finger on the edge of the Portuguese naval chest under the television, running various scenarios through his head, weighing each option for its best advantage.

He settled upon one course.

Earlier, Ju-long had tried to raise Tomaz at the Lisboa, to warn of their targets’ pending flight, but he had failed to reach anyone. He pictured the firefight being waged across the floors of the casino. It was a war being fought at his own behest, so he could not fault that it demanded Tomaz’s full attention at the moment.

So be it.

He pressed a button on his phone. As it was answered, he passed on a terse order. “Bring my car around.”

As he waited, someone knocked softly on his door. He turned to see it open, and a small figure slipped inside wearing a short silk robe and slippers. She was a vision in tanned skin, draped with a flow of honey-colored hair. As she crossed toward him, she cradled her swollen belly with one hand.

“Natalia, my sweet, you should be in bed.”

“Your son won’t let me,” she said with a tender smile, her eyes glancing invitingly toward him. “Perhaps if his father were lying beside me . . .”

“How I wish I could, but first I must attend to some business.”

She pouted.

He crossed to her, dropped to his knees, and kissed her belly where his son slumbered. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised them both, adding a kiss to her cheek as he ushered her out.

He truly wished he could join her—but at his father’s knee, he had learned that whether in war or business, sometimes one simply had to get one’s hands dirty.

2:16 A.M.

Seichan sensed the walls closing in on her.

The longer they remained trapped inside Casino Lisboa, the slimmer were their chances of escaping.

She drew upon that desperation as she rushed from the stairwell door and out into the open of the basement shopping mall. Feigning a slight limp, she put on a great show of distress, pretending to be one of the mall’s prostitutes caught amid the firefight.

She spun around in a circle, pulling at her hair, crying for help in Cantonese. Tears streamed down her face as she ran from one gate to another, pounding to be let inside, for someone to rescue her.

As with many such places, she understood there was an unspoken relationship between the storeowners and the prostitutes who prowled this lower level, defined by the mutually beneficial flow of commerce.

The shops drew prospective clients, while the prostitutes lured potential shoppers.

The great circle of life.

She counted on that relationship extending to the two sides protecting each other. When she reached a farmers’ market, she sank to her knees against its steel fence. She rocked and moaned, looking lost and frightened.

As she had hoped, her plaintive cries finally drew someone out of hiding. A tiny white-haired man with a dirty apron came timidly to the gate. He made a motion to shoo her away, scolding her.

Instead, she clung to his gate, hanging from it in an operatic display of despair and fear, pleading with him.

Realizing she wasn’t going to leave, he dropped to a knee. He searched over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, and only then did he risk unlocking the gate.

As soon as he began to lift the steel fence, Seichan secretly motioned to Gray and Kowalski.

The stairwell door creaked open behind her, accompanied by the pounding of boots coming toward her.

The proprietor’s eyes grew huge. He tried to push the gate back down. Before he could, Seichan skirted under it and elbowed him back with one arm and yanked the fence higher with the other.

Gray ran up and skidded on his knees under the gate.

Kowalski barrel-rolled after him, slamming into a stand of oranges.

Gray pointed his rifle at the man.

“Lock it,” Seichan ordered, straightening her back and shedding her act like a snakeskin.

The storeowner obeyed in a rush, resecuring his gate.

“Tell him we mean him no harm,” Gray said.

Seichan translated, but from the cold look in her eyes and her stony countenance, he did not seem soothed. She questioned him briefly, then turned to Gray.

“The warehouse exit is back this way,” she said and led them in that direction.

Moving deeper into the market, they passed along a long counter supporting boxes of locally grown fruits and vegetables. On the other side, rows of watery tanks held live fish, turtles, frogs, and shellfish.

Upon reaching the far side, she found a concrete ramp headed up, ending at a large roll-up door used by delivery trucks. A smaller service entrance beckoned to the left.

Glad to be rid of them, the proprietor keyed the side door open and angrily waved them out into the night.

Gray led the way with his rifle.

Seichan followed, pushing into a narrow service alley.

Sirens echoed from all directions as emergency vehicles closed in on the Lisboa, but the press of the festival’s crowds around Nam Van Lake and its surrounding streets continued to stymie a fast response.

In fact, out here, most of the drunken revelers seemed unaware of the neighboring turf war. Fireworks rang out from the crowd around the lake, exploding over the waters, reflecting among the thousands of candlelit lanterns floating on the lake. Closer at hand, the neighboring Wynn casino danced with flumes of water, rising from an acre-sized fountain, the jets set to the tunes of the Beatles.