Elvis gave him a curt nod as he headed for the coffeemaker. “Yup. Never left. Just didn’t go to my room.” He turned andgave the man a smirk. “Some of us still know how to enjoy life, squeezing every bit out of it we can. And trust me, there was a lot of squeezing last night. As the King said, ‘Live each day as if it were your last.’”
Elvis poured himself a cup of coffee and then turned and leaned back on the counter as he took his first sip, glancing around at the buzzing room. A bank of monitors lined one wall, showing surveillance angles of the casino floor, the elevators, hallways, and all rooftop access points. Colin, the Silvers’ middle sibling tucked between Taylor and Barrett, was fiddling with a laptop rig, while Taylor leaned over a blueprint of the casino and Barrett handed out earpieces. Sitting in a chair off to the side and sipping coffee was Hawk, Elvis’s stoic comrade from GSI. The man watched the others with a blank expression, like someone who didn’t know whether to laugh or take cover. He gave Elvis a curt nod when they locked eyes, but that was all, and Elvis merely chuckled, thinking the man made Callen look like a jokester.
Elvis bounced off the counter and crossed the room to where Hawk sat, glancing over his shoulder at the table. “No doughnuts? What kind of operation is this?”
Hawk shook his head. “I see you’re still trying out for the Worst Decisions Ever Made. Did you at least wait until she woke up before sneaking off?”
“My friend, Inevermake bad decisions,” Elvis smirked, lifting his coffee to take a slow sip. “Only fun ones.” He shrugged as he lowered the cup. “And I don’t feel bad at all. She didn’t remember my name either.”
Hawk merely rolled his eyes before glancing over at the Silvers. “How’s it looking?”
Levi stood straighter as he stared at the monitors, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “So far, so good. VectorPoint Global is set, and there’s a full list of billionaires, power brokers,and hackers all pretending to play nice while thinking about stabbing each other in the firewall.”
Elvis cocked a brow as he stared at the man, falling back against the wall without splashing his coffee. “Is that a euphemism for something?”
Taylor sighed as he glided his fingers through his short red hair. “Nope. Just means it’s Thursday.”
Elvis chuckled. “All right. Give us the rundown for this… Thursday.”
Levi pointed to the schedule on the wall monitor. “Keynote starts at eight, and our job is to supplement the internal casino security and prevent any surprise walk-ons. We’ll sweep the main ballroom, VIP suites, and service corridors. No one gets in or out without credentials. We’ll have facial recognition running on loop, but it’s glitchy with the lighting. Hence the extra boots on the ground, which, just as a heads up, the Director of Security Operations, one Raymond Boudreaux, wasn’t too thrilled about, which means we weren’t his idea, just something shoved at him. He hates extra people on his floors and, from what I could gather, he’s also dealing with a security audit over the next couple of days. Some company out of Oregon, Obsidian Analytics. So the man’s extra grouchy.”
Colin, just a year younger than Taylor, with shaggy blond hair and baby blue eyes, which Elvis was sure made him the winner at many hookup bars, spun in his desk chair, turning away from the monitors to face Elvis and Hawk. “I tapped into the casino’s security feeds, so we’ll see everything they see.” His grin grew almost too big for his face. “I was also able to add some of my own toys, like motion detectors and some Bluetooth proximity sensors. Even hooked up a couple of custom sensors just in case someone brings something not sold at RadioShack.”
“Is that place still around?” Hawk asked, one brow cocked.
Elvis merely laughed as he lifted his cup. “Sounds like you could give Blaze a run for his money. I’m impressed.”
Colin grinned even more, a devilish twist of his lips. “We’ve been comparing notes.”
Elvis slipped his earpiece in as he drained his coffee, setting the cup on the table when he finished. “All right. Hawk and I will take a stroll around to get a lay of the land. We’ll let you know if we see any gaps in the camera surveillance while we’re at it.”
Barrett leaned back in his seat. “Maybe grab a shower,” he smirked, his dark blue eyes shining. “You look like you just crawled out of bed.”
Elvis scoffed. “That’s because I did.”
The casino pulsed with a thousand blinking lights and the low whir of money being lost in real-time as they stepped onto the floor. The air was cool, dry, and just scented enough to feel expensive. There were no windows to keep the gamblers from knowing just how long they were sitting at their machines, and servers in short skirts and black pantyhose walked around offering free drinks to anyone sitting at a machine. The casino couldn’t have them getting up and wandering off with money still in their pockets, now could they?
Elvis scanned the room like he was casing the joint, which, technically, he was, just not for the wrong reasons. Security, however, needed to think like a burglar to keep the burglar out. It was all part of the process.
He pointed to a camera in a corner between two of the slot machine rows. “See that angle?”
Hawk nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, it’s angled too much. Gives us a dead zone.”
“That’s what I thought.” Elvis tapped his earpiece. “Hey, Colin, we should rotate Camera 14 about thirty degrees left. Looks like a visibility gap there that someone overlooked.”
“Let me take a peek,” came the reply. “Yup, you’re right. Good catch. I’ll have them move it. Give me a sec.”
Elvis stared at the camera as it slid to the left.
“All right. Got it.”
“Thanks,” Elvis replied. Then chuckled as he shook his head. “You know, this feels a lot like one of those heist movies. You know the ones with Clooney and Pitt? I may need a tux tonight.”
Hawk scoffed as he walked down the aisle. “You’ll get a badge if you’re lucky and a clipboard to doodle on while we stand around trying not to be too bored.”
Elvis sighed. “Yeah. All the cybersecurity people will be here. And the hackers. Could be a game of cyber tug-of-war, which would never be visible to us. Blaze would have been better suited for this.”
“Please. The kid would be too distracted with all the big names in this place to focus on the job.”
