Page 17 of Deadly Hacker

“As you probably know, we’re here to teach a hard lesson to one of the Shining Star’s sneakiest patrons. Tonight’s target is a man named Eddie Hansen. For the past month and a half, he’s been coming in every Wednesday night like clockwork to run his little card-counting scam. I’ve hacked Hansen’s devices to learn more about him and plant the seeds. This guy isn’t a lone wolf; he’s training a raggedy crew of young criminals to be his backup. If we don’t cut him down effectively, he’ll become a bigger infestation than we want to deal with,” Rad explained.

He paused for a moment for emphasis, then went on. “The security team and manager will play along. You’ll act as though it’s a normal night at the casino. A couple of our lower-ranking members will sit at the card table with Hansen. You’ll intentionally make it an easy game for him. We want him to think he’s untouchable, king of the cards. Lily, I need you tending to his every whim. Play up the flirtation. Bring him stronger and fancier drinks as he plays, so he gets drunk. Normally, a card counter would be smart enough to stay sober. But Lily, you’ll be very persuasive, okay? We will lure him into a false sense of security so he doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“Sounds fun,” Lily said.

Luka spoke up, “I’ll be waiting down in the parking lot for your word, Rad.”

“With your knives.” Rad nodded.

Luka gave him a wolfish grin and flashed a small blade. “Da.”

Rad glanced down at the GPS tracker on his cell phone. “Hansen is walking in right now. It’s time to take our places. Let the game begin.”

He stayed in the back room with the surveillance screens to watch the scene unfold. Hansen sat down at his usual table, which was staffed with Sokolov players. Rad watched as all the moving pieces fell into place. Hansen was dressed in a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, wearing designer shades bought recently with his ill-gotten winnings.

Rad wrinkled his nose at the dorky-looking cheater. He’d never looked that stupid during his own brief stint counting cards.

It had been three years since he was caught by the Shining Star pit bosses and brought to Mikhail for punishment. Rad was lucky, though. His genius was evident, even as he unknowingly plunged himself into deep trouble. The pit boss had recognized a brilliant statistician and presented Rad as a potential asset to the mafia.

He was an outsider, a civilian. He wasn’t Russian. He hadn’t even been a criminal until he began counting cards and illegally hacking.

But fortunately for Rad, Mikhail had agreed with the pit boss’s assessment. He’d not only allowed Rad to live, but eventually recruited him to work as the crime family’s money maker and finance keeper. His hacking skills made him too valuable to kill.

Rad was estranged from his own family back home. They didn’t know or understand his crooked ways. He’d strayed too far from the prescribed path. But he had found a new home with the Sokolov crime family, and now he was their finest asset in taking down smaller criminals.

After a couple hours of playing, drinking, and working up a boastful glow, Hansen was finally escorted away from the card tables. Rad watched the guards take him to what they called the Treasure Room. It was a fortified vault where the guards handed out winnings to the high rollers and lucky players. They gave Hansen a white envelope with a golden seal in the shape of a star, shook his hand, and sent him on his way. Hansen had no reason to believe this payout was any different from the ones he was accustomed to, other than the fact that it was a far larger sum than he had ever won before.

Rad watched the card counter leave the casino for the back parking lot. It was time for Rad and Luka to join in. The mafia hacker coolly exited the casino out the back and sneaked around the corner of the building. He watched Hansen beeline to his brand-new overpriced street racer coupe and hop inside, locking the doors. Then he greedily ripped open the white envelope to count his money.

It wasn’t a smart car, but Rad didn’t need it to be. He had a different toy this time.

He slinked through the parking lot with a sniper rifle, moving in time with the shifting shadows. Despite the heavy weapon in his hands, Rad felt cool as a cucumber. The adrenaline only intensified his enjoyment. He glanced across the shadowy lot to see Luka crouched down behind an SUV like a tiger lying in wait.

Rad was close enough to see the glee on Hansen’s face as he shuffled through his hundred-dollar bills. But when he reached the end of the stack, his face fell. He was puzzled to find a note scrawled in black marker across the otherwise crisp bill.

You can count cards, but you can’t count on your safety.

Rad glanced down at Luka and gave him a nod. Luka unsheathed two knives and darted toward the coupe. His blades glinted in the moonlight as he plunged them into each tire, one by one, and then dashed back around the corner of the building. Meanwhile, Hansen was panicking. He was terrified of the hooded tire-slasher, trying to start up his car to leave. Rad knew he couldn’t go anywhere; the indicators on his dashboard were undoubtedly telling him the same thing—his tires were too badly punctured to drive away.

Hansen fumbled for his cell phone to call for help, but Rad was a step ahead of him. Rad casually pulled out his own cell, using it as a proxy for hacking Hansen’s phone. It took barely a second for him to take control from the inside. Rad changed the password and locked the phone’s screen. Then he fed a text message to Hansen’s phone via a blocked number.

The house always wins. The house is always watching.

Hansen was in a frenzy, trying to start his car and feverishly retyping the incorrect password into his phone. Rad wasn’t finished yet, though.

He held up his sniper rifle, closing one eye to better peer through the viewfinder. He allowed the little red dot to linger in the center of Hansen’s forehead. When Hansen looked down at his darkened cell phone screen, he saw that scary red dot in its reflection. He froze up instantly. Rad could almost taste his paralyzed terror. From the same blocked number, he called Hansen’s phone. It rang and rang and rang before Hansen was brave enough to try to answer it. To his surprise, Rad had changed back the password, and he was easily able to swipe it open and answer the call.

“H-Hello?” the card counter muttered.

“Take the money and run, Hansen. Don’t look back. If I find you counting cards at my casino again, I’ll put lead in your head. Every time you spend one of those dollars, remember the mercy I’ve shown you tonight,” Rad growled. He hung up.

Hansen all but tumbled out of his car onto the asphalt. He jumped up and scampered away on foot, clearly petrified that he might be shot dead at any moment. He even dropped a couple hundred dollars as he fled the parking lot and took off around the corner.

Rad and Luka converged at the coupe, both of them laughing darkly. The mission had been a success, and now they had a vehicle to tow. First, though, they would riffle through Hansen’s personal items for more information. Blackmail, too, if they could find it. The money was gone, but it didn’t matter. The bills were all counterfeit, anyway. The criminal would be humiliated at best and arrested at worst if he ever tried to spend them.

“It’s a pity we had to let him live,” Luka groused as he plucked the knives from Hansen’s tires. “My blades are thirsty for blood, not just tire rubber.”

Rad gave him a satisfied smirk. “Fair play is fair play. We’ve given him his first warning. If he’s stupid enough to come back, you’re welcome to gut him like a fish.”

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