The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,63

smile, strode over. ‘Well, looky who it is! This is a surprise, Bianca.’

‘Not a pleasant one,’ she replied, voice icy.

‘Aw, don’t be a sore loser. Besides, a rich girl like you, it’s just a drop in the bucket.’ He nodded towards her chips. ‘Looking forward to taking those from you tonight. Now, where are you sitting?’

‘Why don’t you pick a seat first, then I’ll decide?’

He smirked, then pointed at the place facing Zykov’s. ‘That looks lucky.’

Bianca put her chips down beside the Russian’s. ‘This looks luckier.’

‘Don’t count on it. Have a good evening – for as long as it lasts.’ He dropped his chips in messy piles at his seat, then headed for the bar.

Zykov watched him, eyes narrowed. ‘You think he cheated you?’

‘I’m absolutely positive. But I couldn’t prove it.’

A glance towards the two muscular men. ‘If he cheats tonight, he will regret it.’ So they were his bodyguards. Two in here – which meant the other two were probably somewhere close by in the casino.

She smiled at him. ‘I like the cut of your jib, Ruslan.’

It took him a moment to work out her meaning, but when he did, he was pleased. ‘I think we are both going to have a good evening tonight.’

‘It’ll be interesting, I’m sure.’ That was something she couldn’t deny.

Two million dollars. And I’m going to take it all.

Adam’s poker face matched Peter Vanwall’s: a near-permanent hint of arch smugness, each card, good or bad, regarded with the same heavy-eyed smirk. It was a technique honed over many years by the Illinois card sharp, and it had served its user well. Stoic unreadability was one thing, but Vanwall had found early in his career that infuriating his opponents with nothing more than the curl of his lips was better. Pissed-off players made mistakes.

And Zykov was pissed off.

The Russian was trying to hide it, but his anger was rising with each lost hand. Bianca thought she had spotted telltale hints of when he was bluffing early on, silently relaying them to the team outside the casino with nothing more than gentle pressure on a fingernail. Holly Jo relayed her assessments back to Adam through his earwig, and it had only taken a few games for him to spot the pattern.

It wasn’t so much a distinct tell – no nervous tics or beads of sweat here – as a shift in Zykov’s entire demeanour. On a weak hand, he seemed to shrink, his squat, muscular frame drawing protectively inwards. It was very subtle, but once noticed it became impossible to miss.

Would he have picked up on it without Vanwall’s persona in his mind? The gambler had taken on every kind of player imaginable in his long career, thousands of different faces blending together into twenty or so types. The raccoon, skulking at the edge of the action and only darting in with a big bet when it felt completely safe. The pigeon, pecking at everything on the table. The shark. The spider. The owl. Everyone was an animal.

Almost everyone. Bianca was the exception. The fact that she was deliberately playing to lose made her hard to assess. A cat, maybe, carefully stalking until the right moment? He wasn’t sure.

But Zykov was definitely a bear, appropriately enough. He relied on sheer force of presence, slamming down big bets at the earliest opportunity in an attempt to scare off the competition. And if anyone dared to challenge him, they would frequently find that he was not bluffing.

Only now, Adam could tell when he was.

Most of the time. That remaining uncertainty made the game dangerous, even with help to tip the odds in his favour.

‘Okay, Adam,’ said Levon inside his ear, ‘there’s a twenty-four per cent chance that Zykov has a hearts flush. Be careful.’

He hadn’t needed Levon’s program to know that, based on the cards already played, but the precise odds helped him assess the risk. If Zykov’s hole card was a heart, then the Russian had won this game. His own hand was three of a kind, sevens. He surveyed the table. Three players had already dropped out of the betting. Bianca also had a potential three of a kind, but only fours. The Indian, Nair, might have a straight, but with the weakness of his bets it was unlikely. Cau, the Chinese, possibly had two pair, but was also reluctant to keep up with the betting.

Zykov’s bet. Was the hidden card a heart?

The Russian pondered his hand, then slowly slid a stack of chips away from