like I was dirt. Like I was a terrorist. I doubt if they would even have served me. Asghar wouldn't have lasted five minutes without getting in a fight. And there was no sign of trouble. There was no blood on the floor. Which there would have been. Asghar is armed, and he's fast, and he doesn't suffer fools gladly.'
Mahmeini said, 'Then he went somewhere else.'
'I checked all over town. Which didn't take long. The sidewalks roll up when it gets dark. There's nowhere to hide. He isn't here.'
'Women?'
'Are you kidding me? Here?'
'Did you try his phone again?'
'Over and over.'
There was a long, long pause. Mahmeini, in his Las Vegas office, processing data, changing gears, improvising. He said, 'OK, let's move on. This business is important. It has to be taken care of tomorrow. So you'll have to manage on your own. You can do that. You're good enough.'
'But I don't have a car.'
'Get a ride from Safir's boys.'
'I thought of that. But the dynamic would be weird. I wouldn't be in charge. I would be a passenger, literally. And how would I explain why I let Asghar take off somewhere and leave me high and dry? We can't afford to look like idiots here. Or weak. Not in front of these people.'
'So get another car. Tell the others you told Asghar to go on ahead, or somewhere else entirely, for some other purpose.'
'Get another car? From where?'
Mahmeini said, 'Rent one.'
'Boss, this isn't Vegas. They don't even have room service here. The nearest Hertz is back at the airport. I'm sure it's closed until the morning. And I can't get there anyway.'
Another long, long pause. Mahmeini, recalibrating, re-evaluating, reassessing, planning on the fly. He asked, 'Did the others see the first car you were in?'
His guy said, 'No. I'm sure they didn't. We all arrived separately, at different times.'
Mahmeini said, 'OK. You're right about the dynamic. We need to be visibly in charge. And we need to keep the others off balance. So here's what you're going to do. Find a suitable car, within the hour. Steal one, if you have to. Then call the others, in their rooms. I don't care what time it is. Midnight, one o'clock, whatever. Tell them we've decided to start the party early. Tell them you're leaving for the north immediately. Give them five minutes, or you're going without them. They'll be in disarray, packing up and running down to the parking lot. You'll be waiting in your new car. But they won't know it's new. And they won't even notice that Asghar isn't with you. Not in the dark. Not in all the confusion. Then drive fast. Like a bat out of hell. Be the first one up there. When the others get there, tell them you turned Asghar loose, on foot, behind the lines. That will worry them. It will keep them even more off balance. They'll be looking over their shoulders all the time. That's it. That's what you're going to do. That's pretty much a silk purse out of a sow's ear, wouldn't you say?'
Mahmeini's man put his coat on and carried his bag down to the lobby. The desk guy had gone off duty. Presumably there was an all-purpose night porter holed up in a back room somewhere, but Mahmeini's man didn't see any sign of him. He just walked out, bag in hand, looking for a car to steal. Which in many ways was a backward step and an affront to his dignity. Guys in his position had left car theft behind a long time ago. But, needs must. And he still remembered how. There would be no technical difficulty. He would perform with his usual precision. The difficulty would come from being forced to work with such a meagre pool of potential targets.
He had two requirements. First, he needed a vehicle with a degree of prestige. Not necessarily much, but at least some. He couldn't be seen in a rusted and listing pick-up truck, for instance. That would not be remotely appropriate or plausible for a Mahmeini operative, especially one tasked to impress the Duncans. Image was by no means everything, but it greased the skids. Perception was reality, at least half the time.
Second, he needed a car that wasn't brand new. Late-model cars had too much security built in. Computers, microchips in the keys, matching microchips in the keyholes. Nothing was unbeatable, of course, but a quick-and-dirty street job had its practical limits. Newer cars were