Page 40 of The Scarab's Game
Jayce fidgeted in her seat, eyeing the food being delivered to other tables. “Why at a casino?”
“It’s notquitea casino. At least, it’s notonlya casino.” I slid my chip back into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I opened the satellite map, zeroing in on the old town. “Monaco-Ville isthe historic district, built on the rock they call Le Rocher, where the original stronghold was built in the thirteenth century.”
“We visited there yesterday.” Drew and Jayce had gone sightseeing while they were off the clock. “Toured the Oceanographic Museum and watched the changing of the guards at the Prince’s Palace.”
“The best strongholds have emergency tunnels, both for soldiers to escape if they’re overwhelmed or for the populace to get into the stronghold if the city is attacked.” I pointed to a spot directly west of Monaco-Ville. “The caverns under the Exotic Gardens are a big tourist destination. It’s all roped with rough steps and paths for people to follow, but if you go deep enough, there’s a connection between those caverns and a large one inside Le Rocher.”
Rav frowned. “And you know all this because…”
I raised an eyebrow at him, knowing he knew the answer. “Because in the end, it houses one of the world’s most interesting casinos.”
“And black market auctions?” added Drew. It sounded like a question but obviously wasn’t one.
“The native Monégasque people aren’t legally allowed to gamble in Monaco. The Casino de Monte-Carlo was originally built in the mid-nineteenth century to help get the country out of debt, and they didn’t want their own people to go furtherintodebt by gambling their money away.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way?” asked Drew.
“Exactly.” My gaze inadvertently wandered over Rav’s shoulder, to where Jenn was enjoying her meal. She hadn’t turned in our direction once, and Dante hadn’t seemed to notice us either.Focus, Em. “They hold special events—poker pots so high they’d make your eyes water, betting on the behaviors of people they watch through closed-circuit feeds, and adrenaline raffles—for the insanely wealthy. There’s plenty of gray marketactivity. Far more than black most of the time. The police visit occasionally, ensuring there’s no violence, weapons, or whatnot, but they otherwise turn a blind eye to what’s going on.”
Jayce sat up, leaning forward to whisper. “And if I don’t find the scarab tonight, we break in and take it?”
“Plan B is winning it at the auction. But yes, Plan C is breaking into the auction site.” I zoomed in closer to the Oceanographic Museum. “There’s one entrance in the public elevator here. And another one…” I swiped and pinched until I had an image of the back of the Museum. The Rock’s face jutted out of the water, with the back of the building continuing straight up from the cliff. I pointed at a door at the base, close to sea level. “Here.”
“With guards?” asked Jayce.
“Yes.” I zoomed out again and pointed at the Exotic Garden. “Which means we need to find one of the tunnels from the public caverns.”
“It won’t be a service tunnel built out of concrete, will it?” Drew’s jaw clenched as he eyed Jayce. He hid his worry for her well, but I could still see it.
“There’s some element of spelunking required.”
“Sweet!” said Jayce, bouncing back into her seat.
“They take their security very seriously.” I picked my phone up, and the next step in the plan formed in my brain as I spoke. “The regular entrances include metal detectors to ensure no one brings weapons in, and you need to check your digital equipment into Faraday cases so no one’s snagging blackmail material inside.”
Rav sat back, folding his arms. “Which means no comms.”
Our digital communications all ran through our phones. If my phone was inaccessible and no one had another Reynolds phone nearby, my earpiece wouldn’t work. “We never break rule number one.”
The first rule on any op for Reynolds Recoveries: Never turn off your earpiece.
We instituted the rule after one of our jobs went horribly wrong, and we lost Noah.
And now he was back, screwing with us.
Such irony.
“Will mentioned a prototype recently.” I tapped his profile on my phone and held it to my ear. “Hopefully, it’s far enough along we can use it.”
He answered on the first ring. “One sec.” His voice grew muffled. “It’s work. I know it’s late. I need to take this. Yes, it’s—Katie—no, just give me—yeah—five minutes.”
A door closed on his end, and a long, slow breath came over the line. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Katie flew in this afternoon.” His younger sister lived in Seattle, the last I’d heard. “She had some sort of blowup with her husband and is using me and Mum as an excuse for some time away from him.”
Will’s temporary situation in London had started with his father’s funeral and comforting his mother for a couple of weeks. During that ordeal, he’d discovered they’d hidden her early-onset Alzheimer’s from the rest of the family. Over the past year, he’d become her near-full-time caretaker.