“Anyway,” Thompson went on as he turned onto Casino Drive, “once Howland found the matchbooks, he called the Laughlin Shores and it turns out Li-Roo spends most of his waking hours in the poker room there chasing bad beat jackpots. We tried to page him to tell him to wait for us at security, but the poker room manager said he’d stepped out for a cigarette and never come back. They had to pull his chips off the table because he was gone for so long.”
Bolan pieced it all together. “So we’re figuring REDI grabbed him while he was away from the tables.”
Thompson nodded. They were coming up on the Laughlin Shores, the newest of the casinos, located at the end of the strip between the Palms and Harrah’s. As he pulled into the parking lot, the agent concluded, “Our guys are with security, going over the surveillance tapes. Hopefully they picked up something we can use.”
“Even if they do,” Kissinger said, “If REDI already made the nab, they’ll be long gone by now.”
“We’ll see,” Thompson said.
The group got out of the car and waited for Scanlon and the other G-men, then headed for the casino, which was surrounded by a thirty-foot-wide moat stocked with koi and a few algae-covered underwater statues of sleek mermaids. A quarter-size pirate’s galleon rested in the murky waters near the main entrance. Unlike a similar ship in Las Vegas that engaged in nightly combat with a British frigate, the boat here was merely a decoration, manned only by flocks of pigeons and seagulls.
The Shores’ security headquarters were located on the third floor of the casino. Scanlon flashed his badge to the desk officer, who told the group, “It’s kinda crowded here. Do you all need to come in?”
Scanlon asked Kissinger and the other Bureau agents to wait in the hall, then led Bolan and Bahn past the lost-and-found lockers to a back room where FBI agents Randall Howland and Sandra Pearle were going over the surveillance tapes with Chief Security Officer Harmon Wallace, a tall, dark-haired man with an ample midsection.
Scanlon handled introductions, then asked Wallace, “Did you come up with anything?”
“Even as we speak,” Wallace responded.
The security officer called everyone’s attention to the main console he was using to review back footage from the dozens of ceiling-mounted security cameras positioned throughout the casino. On the screen in front of him was a black-and-white image of a slot carousel situated just off the food court.
“This is about a hundred yards from the poker room,” Wallace explained. He pointed to a figure hunched over one of the slot machines. “Here’s our guy, just a couple minutes after he left the tables.”
“Cigarette break?” Jayne Bahn guessed after seeing Li-Roo Kohb blow smoke at the machine he was playing.
“Yeah,” Wallace said. “I talked to the poker room manager and he says the man usually gets up once an hour for a smoke. He’s never gone more than five minutes. Until today, of course.”
Bolan looked closer at the footage and saw three men near a railing separating the food court from the gambling floor. The footage wasn’t clear enough to get a good look at them, but he could tell their features were Asian.
“Are those the guys we’re looking for?” he asked.
“Yep,” Wallace said. “We’ve got them on tape a few minutes earlier near the poker room. They hung back near the railing, same as here. Li-Roo had his back to them, so I don’t think he knew he was being watched.”
“What time are we talking here?” Scanlon asked.
“Just a sec.” Wallace cued up the time print and a digital readout flashed on the upper-right hand of the screen. “It’s 10:24. About forty minutes ago.”
“We just missed them,” Scanlon scowled. “Damn it!”
“Hold on,” Wallace interrupted, slowing the footage. “Here’s where it goes down.”
The others fell silent and watched the screen. Li-Roo Kohb was finishing his cigarette when the couple playing the machines next to him got up and left the carousel. At the same time they were walking off-camera, the three men by the railing strode forward, boxing Li-Roo in. They were all wearing coats, but it was easy for Bolan to see that they were armed, and even though he couldn’t see a gun, it was clear that the man who’d sat next to Kohb had flashed his weapon for the defector to see. The man directly behind Li-Roo leaned forward a moment and whispered something in the defector’s ear. The gambler dropped his cigarette, but one of the other men quickly stepped over to crush it out on the carpet. Moments later Li-Roo was on his feet, sandwiched between two of the men. The third followed close behind as they moved away from the carousel.