Page 53 of The Gambler
“Calm down son, they’re trying to work something out. They don’t know about her father being taken though I don’t think, so we’re on our own here.”
“So where’s her father?”
That was the first time Jenna picked her head up. “Palace.”
“What palace?”
“There’s only one son.”
“No.” He was shaking his head as the realization dawned. Had she actually come here to break into the presidential palace to rescue her father? How the fuck was he going to work this?
They spent the next few hours trying to come up with a plan, but he had nothing. This wasn’t his jurisdiction. The only thing he could think of was getting her the fuck out of there and letting her old man fend for himself. How the fuck had they let it come to this?
“The good thing is, nobody knows what she looks like.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have no idea who she is, they just know her by her handle, from what I gathered. Peter was trying to get that information out of me. I didn’t give him anything of course.”
“So how did he know she’s with us?”
“Apparently Bonata had a tracker on her and Mossad picked it up.”
“So they know that she’s here.” He started running his hands all over her, trying to find whatever the fuck they had attached to her.
“It’s not there, she ditched it.”
“What, when? Where did you toss it baby?” When she made the motion of pulling down the lever on the slots, he didn’t know if to laugh or fucking cry. “Who are you really baby?” he pulled her in for a nice long kiss and she lost some of the sadness from her eyes.
“Don’t worry baby, nothing will happen to you, I won’t let it.” He was feeling better now that he’d learnt they had no idea who she was. He could work with that.
“What I don’t understand is how a foreign entity can carry out a hit on American soil.”
“Those are murky waters son, better left untouched, if you know what I mean.”
“Okay let’s recap here. She has information that Bonata sold, she kept some of it back and now these assholes are after her for it. The people she stole it from have what, two days before they can safeguard it? and in the meantime she has both parties after her, one to kill her and one to use her and then kill her.” Just saying that shit pissed him the fuck off.
“Is there anyway to get into this palace?”
“You’re not going in there, I’m thinking we should let the spooks do it and get the hell outta dodge. We can’t fight this one boyo this is way out of our league. Unless Jenna has an idea, she came here with a plan obviously.”
“No fucking way, she’s not going in there.” Now she was the one running her hand up and down his armto soothe.
“Forget it little thief, you’re not going anywhere but back on that plane and home.” She took his hand and pulled him up from the floor. “Come.” Neither man said anything as they followed her out the door and back up the stairs.
She went to that toy of hers again and he promised himself that the first chance he got, he was burning the shit. Fucking Tom and Jerry. He wondered now if that’s what she had really been after.
She did her magic and pulled up a screen, which looked like the blue prints for something. As usual, he had no idea what the fuck she was showing him. Then she got a scroll out of her bag and they studied what looked like an underground road map.
She pointed to herself then and mimed walking or running. “Jenna go here.”
“Where is here?”
“Uh, that looks like the palace, and if I’m not mistaken that’s the street outside. I could be wrong but I think she’s trying to say there’s an underground tunnel somewhere.”
“How would she know that?”
“Son, the girl broke into one of the world’s best kept secrets, I’m pretty sure getting the blueprints for a hundred year old palace and some underground maps was child’s play.”