Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,88
wasn’t an isolated event. Whatever they do next is likely to be even worse.”
“I wish I could help you,” Sylvia replied. “But Charles took his secrets to his grave.”
“Did you ever follow him?” Abbey asked.
“What?”
“You said he’d be gone for long stretches of times. You were concerned. You thought he was cheating on you. Did you ever follow him to see where he went?”
Sylvia looked away, as if she were embarrassed. “Once.”
“Did you tell the FBI?”
“No, because it turned out to be nothing. Charles told me he had to visit a client, and he said it was a long drive, so he was going to stay overnight rather than make the round trip. I thought maybe he was meeting a woman. So yes, after he left, I followed him. As it happens, that was one time he wasn’t lying to me. He really did go to a client’s location. I felt stupid about it, so I went back home and never followed him again.”
“Where did he go?” Abbey asked. “Who was the client?”
“A casino in Mesquite called the Three Mountains. They were a new client, but they were generating a lot of business for him. He had to go out there almost every week.”
Abbey frowned. “Charles was an actuary, right?”
“Yes, he did complex statistical modeling. Anticipating risk. He was a brilliant man. He had an incredible mind for math.”
“Had he worked for casinos before?”
“In Las Vegas? Of course. They’re obsessed with balancing risk and reward.”
“You said the Three Mountains casino was a new client. A lucrative one. Do you know how they picked Charles to work for them?”
Sylvia shrugged. “It was a referral. That was how he got most of his business.”
“Who referred him?”
“He’d built a relationship with a New York lawyer who had connections at a number of the casinos in town,” Sylvia replied. “They’d known each other for several months. Charles got bumped up to first class on a flight to LaGuardia, and this man sat in the seat next to him. It was totally coincidental, but sometimes that’s how the best connections happen.”
Abbey didn’t think the meeting on the plane was a coincidence. Not where Medusa was concerned.
“What was the lawyer’s name?” she asked.
Sylvia hesitated as she tried to place it in her memory. “It was an odd name,” she said finally. “Gattor, I think. Yes, that was it. Carson Gattor.”
THIRTY
JASON stood atop the hills directly across from the Three Mountains casino in the small desert town of Mesquite. He focused his binoculars on the neon-lit back door, watching elegantly dressed players come and go. It was nearly midnight, but that hadn’t slowed the arrival of high rollers. He saw limousines from Las Vegas bringing Arab and Chinese customers, each of them greeted by stunning escorts, sometimes male, sometimes female. The casino knew the sexual preferences of its best clients. An occasional private jet roared overhead, landing at the small Mesquite airport to ferry what the gaming industry called whales. They were the ones who didn’t blink at playing blackjack at ten thousand dollars a hand.
A posse of guards in suits, obviously armed, roamed the porte cochere to keep out ordinary players. Anyone who tried to go inside at the rear door was politely redirected to an entrance on the other side of the building, where they could find penny slots and keno. There were two hotel towers rising above the casino, a taller one for the average tourist and a smaller venue that couldn’t be booked by outsiders. There was nothing about it online.
“This definitely isn’t a sawdust joint,” Abbey commented, borrowing the binoculars. “Most of these people must be putting seven figures in play. How can a hole-in-the-wall casino in Mesquite handle that kind of action?”
“Deep pockets,” Bourne replied. “Medusa.”
“You think this is their headquarters?”
“Probably not, but it’s part of their operation. They went to a lot of trouble to get Charles Hackman here, so I’m guessing this is where he was recruited. Look at the people going in the door. I’m sure they’re hand-selected. Everyone brings something different. Political influence. Corporate power. Technical expertise. Military background. Wealthy connections. Bring them in, ply them with drinks, drugs, women, money. That’s how you create leverage. Medusa is expanding its reach all over the world. It starts behind those doors.”
“So what are you going to do?” Abbey asked.
“Go inside,” Bourne replied.
Abbey turned and stared at him in the darkness. “Are you crazy, Jason? They’ll recognize you as soon as you set foot inside the casino.”