Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

Safety? Talia squinted at him. “What do—”

“Please.” He pushed their luggage cart into a passage with a curving taupe wall and held the door open, indicating in no uncertain terms that they should get out.

A green arrow pulsated at the center of Talia’s slate, holding its angle no matter which way she held the screen. These will lead you to your room. “Okay. I guess that’s it, then.”

“Almost.” The MC coughed and held out an open palm.

“Right. A tip.” Talia laid three one-thousand-Baht notes in his palm, the equivalent of a hundred US. Val added three of her own, and the MC stepped back into the elevator. “Very generous. The mark of competitors with class.” As the doors closed, he wheeled his arms, the bills fluttering in his hands. “Good luck, ladies. May you—”

They didn’t hear the rest.

Val watched numbers count down as he descended. “May you win? May you sleep well?”

“May you live to tip me again,” Talia said. “I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.”

The two pushed the cart along the tight curve of the passage until they reached an archway that opened into the main hallways. They both stopped in stunned disbelief.

The upper floors were a combination of glass and clear acrylic, held together with steel beams and cables and crisscrossed with brass conduit. Bangkok’s lights shined in, captured and refracted in the twisting profile of the tower. Only the rooms—two or three per floor—and a few concrete supports were opaque.

“He’s built a transparent labyrinth.” Talia felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Boyd had taken the whole video-game boss-level concept a few steps farther than she’d ever dreamed. “He’s built a giant death maze in the sky.”

CHAPTER

SIXTY-

FOUR

WESTERN TOWER

TWIN TIGERS COMPLEX

BANGKOK, THAILAND

TWOFLOORSBELOW, Talia could see a figure in a hoodie wandering the acrylic halls, holding a small gray device at arm’s length. The figure looked up, an Asian woman with a scar, noted their presence, and moved on. “That’s not creepy at all.”

“She’s trying to work out the maze.” Val walked ahead, following the slate’s arrow, while Talia pushed the cart. “We should do the same. This whole thing is very dystopian. You think Boyd is obsessed with Hunger Games?”

“I think—” Talia grunted as she pushed. The hallway had some slope to it. “I think Boyd is psychotic. To be fair, he’s not alone. Boyd and Jordan may share an interior decorator.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You should see my office.”

The clear walls and floors caused an optical illusion that made navigation impossible. Some hallways were dead ends, others were closed off entirely, existing only to fool the eye. Without the slates, Talia and Val would never have found the room even though they could see it the whole time. And the clear floors did not mesh well with Talia’s fear of heights.

At the room, she pushed the cart across the threshold onto the relative normality of a carpeted floor and sank into a black suede couch. “Yes. Praise God for drywall and paint.”

Val was less impressed. “Two bedrooms. Kitchenette. Stocked minibar.” She waved a room service menu at Talia and shrugged. “I’ve seen better.”

“It’s not a spa weekend, Val.”

“Truer words . . .” Val fished Eddie’s hockey puck out of her duffel. The tungsten core coins—about half of the total in the bags—had served as great shielding, impervious to X-rays. She plugged the puck into a wall outlet, raised an antenna, and flicked a switch.

Talia shoved her earpiece into place and heard Eddie on the comms. “—your signal. Repeat, I am receiving your signal. VHF burn-through is solid. Stand by. Don’t say a word. Scanning.”

A few seconds passed. Val and Talia exchanged a look.

“You’re clean. No listening devices or cameras, and no transmitters other than your own.”

Val moved to the other duffel. “Boyd is playing fair—a positive by-product of his narcissism. He wants his players to know they’ve been squarely beaten.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Tyler said over the frequency. “He might be happy with just the illusion of fair play.”

The grifter smiled. “I know I am.” She drew two pouches from the bottom of the duffel, both slightly lighter in color than the rest. She passed one to Talia.

Inside, packed in gold coins, was a small plastic pistol with two magazines of P3Q rounds—Tyler’s low-velocity, low-noise version. Talia tucked the weapon into her waistband.

Val dragged her suitcase into the larger of the two bedrooms. “Eddie, did you identify any of the other competitors?”

“Aside from Atan, we ID’d a hacker named Bi Fan and an antiquities dealer named Rudenko—the Clouded Leopard and the Snow Leopard, respectively.”

“Rudenko?” Val reappeared at the bedroom door. “I know Rudenko. He’s a black-market antiquities dealer.”

Talia met her gaze. “And I’ll bet you’ve done some acquisition work for him.”

“Maybe.”

She crossed her arms and frowned. “Anyone else, Eddie?”

“The Maltese Tiger slot is open—you two saw to that on Milos. One of the other two panthers looked Scandinavian. The other never showed.”

Val dropped onto the couch. “Chickened out?”

“Maybe. Or he might have been—”

“The trafficker whose blood we found at the compound.” Talia closed her eyes. If that were true, they might catch Boyd, but they’d never find out where Hla Meh and the other kids were taken. “Let’s hope that’s not the case.”

AT PRECISELY A QUARTER TO NINE, while Talia was still unpacking her gear in the smaller bedroom, all the TVs in the suite flickered to life. The White Lion roared over the surround sound system, and the lights dimmed.

“This guy loves a dramatic digital entrance,” Eddie said.

“Hush.” Talia put on the glasses Franklin had issued her months before, set with a hidden camera and augmented reality data displays. “Make sure you record this.”

The White Lion paced into view on a red screen, deep voice shaking the walls. “Let the Frenzy begin. The rules are simple. Close as many deals as you can in twenty-four hours, culminating in the Grand Bazaar. Bring in at least ten million US. That is your