Chapter 27

As we left the casino and entered the elevator, Winnie kissed me hard enough to sck the air out of my lungs, and didn't let up until we were inside our suite. As she removed her mouth from mine, she said, "Don't say a thing you don't want those three to hear. Our room will soon be bugged, if it isn't already. The second they take an interest in you, they will check us out to the 'enth degree."

That done, she undressed me, and as soon as Winnie had me at her mercy, she whispered once more, "Don't even think about having sex in my rear. It isn't going to happen, but we are going to play it up to the hilt, since you got such a blatant reaction out of those bozos."

That made me sad, but I understood – even so...

We showered, played with each other till we were sufficiently exhausted, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

My special phone woke me around three. The electronic voice instructed me to meet an agent at a certain parking spot, in an unlighted parking lot, in twenty minutes.

It took me nineteen.

Out of thin air, a man appeared behind me, handed me a package marked, Christmas Cards, and disappeared as suddenly as he appeared. The only sound he made was, "Don't trust your room. It's been tossed."

If I HAD to describe him I would have said he was either tall, or average height, had medium long hair that might have been brown, and weighed somewhere between one-hundred and fifty pounds, and two–hundred, but I bet I would have been wrong, at least half the time.

He made no impression on me what-so-ever.

Once behind our locked door, we dressed and went to find a quiet spot to study the photos. In the envelope were several photos, each showing two men using an electronic key card to enter our room, and the same two men leaving. All photos were time stamped, and I could plainly see that one of the men was Massoud. The other was a complete stranger to me, but I memorized his face and body-build. The time stamp indicated the illicit entry was made shortly after Winnie played her part about buying the Yacht.

The last two photos showed my messenger, removing the devices, doing something to alter them, and replacing them to keep our quarry from becoming suspicious.

They worked awfully fast, which meant they had serious help from the hotel.

Winnie was beside me with a magnifying glass, studying the photos for little details that might help us understand more about them and their mission. We worked over every inch of each photo but came away with very little other than the identity of Massoud, and getting a good picture of his accomplice in our minds.

Winnie reminded me of the importance of keeping all conversations benign. "We know our backup did something to neutralize their bug, but that only buys us a day, at most, before they break in and replace them. Let's keep it general, a little sexy, and a lot boring. If they have naked pictures of me, I will be able to tell by their reaction when we walk in to the casino, tonight.

"Massoud won't be able to keep his twisted appetite off his face, and then we'll know they are perving on my body. You need to watch Fahs. If he's as gay as he acts, he is getting off on looking at your naughty bits." At least Winnie giggled when she said it. I hadn't thought of myself as a sex symbol, but to each his own, I guess...

We tromped back to bed, and cuddled until sleep finally took us.

That lasted until five-thirty, when the pounding on our door got so loud, I had to go see about it. Rather than open the door, not knowing what, or who was out there, I reinforced the doorknob with a chair, and confirmed that the safety latch was thrown, before asking, "Who's there, and what do you want at this obscene hour?"

There was a pause and then a male voice said, "It's Maintenance, sir. We have an electronic alarm indicated either smoke, or fire in your suite. Can you please open the door so we can investigate the problem?"

Winnie grabbed the house phone and dialed the front desk for confirmation, but they knew nothing about an alarm in our room, and promised to send house security immediately.

We were pretty much stuck. The door was going to hold back anything but a full assault, and until the hotel dicks arrived, we were on the safe side of it. Our 'guests' felt differently and kept requesting access until another voice joined the noise, saying, "Who are you, and what are you doing annoying our guests?"

The noises that followed sounded like a good old fashioned donnie-brook, so I took advantage of the confusion to slip out and cold cock the one closet to me, while his partner struggled with two hotel employees.

That done, I let myself back inside and waited.

Pretty soon our phone rang and the front desk clerk, whose voice was confirmed by Winnie, informed us that security had "dealt with" the wanna-be intruders, and that everything was Ok, now.

Not so fast. We heard a crash, a scream, and the sound of running feet. Winnie told the desk about it, and I went to see if I could help.

One guard was down and wouldn't be getting up, unless medical science had discovered a way to reinsert scattered brains into a skull bearing a forty-five caliber hole. The second guard was unconscious but breathing. I called to Winnie to call back and get tell the desk to call for an ambulance and send the hotel doctor as fast as possible.