"Maybe you should have a Nobel Prize of your own."
"All in good time." Rachel pulled a portable DVD player from her satchel and lifted the screen. She placed the unit on Demanski's desk.
"What's this?"
"It's a video taken in my conference room at Bally's." She angled the player in Demanski's direction. Rachel herself was on camera, handing stacks of money to four young women and two men. "I spent many hours of research deciding how Hans Felder would catch card counters. I then spent another two hours devising a system in which he might not catch one. Today I taught my system to these six young people and gave them ten thousand dollars apiece to turn loose on your tables."
Demanski stared at the video, then looked back up at her. "There's no way. We'd know if they hit us."
"Unless you've heard from your security chief this evening, I'd say you wouldn't know. It's really a simple system, once you get the hang of it. Each player assigns points to the cards as they appear on the table. We alternate between variations of the Revere Advanced Point Count system and the Red Seven Count system, mostly. Bets are dictated by however many points have been accumulated."
"I guarantee you, half the muumuu-wearing, blue-haired ladies in the casinos downtown know those systems. We would have caught on in under five minutes."
"Not if we changed systems every fifth, ninth, and thirteenth hands."
Demanski's brow wrinkled. "Fifth, ninth, and thirteenth… "
"Each prime number plus two. There's more to it than that of course, but that will do for a start."
Demanski gazed at her face for a long moment. "Holy shit," he murmured. He grabbed a red phone on his desk. "Gower, get up here. Now!"
Rachel leaned closer. "Tell him to bring up my team. I told them to wait by the main elevators."
He grimaced, then spoke into the phone. "Did you hear that? Yeah, two men and four women. They look like they're in their early twenties. Bring them up."
Demanski let the phone receiver fall back into the cradle. "How much?"
"We'll have to ask them."
"Shit."
In less than two minutes, a short, dark man who looked like a bar bouncer entered the office with Rachel's team.
Demanski stood up. "Rachel Kirby, this is my director of security, Larry Gower."
Despite his brutish appearance, Gower spoke with a gentlemanly air of sophistication. "Good evening, ma'am. A pleasure."
Demanski crossed his arms. "How are things downstairs tonight?"
"Pretty calm. We had to eject a few rowdies at the table slots. The bank was hit hard by some high rollers." He gestured to the six young people behind him. "Who all happen to be right here."
Rachel nodded to her team. In almost perfect synchronization, they unzipped their identical knapsacks and dumped the contents on the desk.
Demanski stared at the mountain of cash. The bills were collected in hundreds of identical stacks, neatly held together by his casino's white paper bands.
A young woman with close-cropped blond hair stepped forward. "That's 2.7 million dollars. We could have gotten more if Dr. Kirby had let us play longer than seventy-eight minutes."
Demanski was still staring at the cash. "Seventy-eight minutes?"
Rachel picked up a stack of hundred-dollar bills and rifled though it. "That's as long as they could play without being in danger of getting caught." She tossed the stack back down on his desk. "I've been in touch with colleagues near your casinos in Reno, Monte Carlo, and Macao. I estimate I can take you for almost 200 million before your statisticians catch on."
"Really?" Demanski said without expression. "Unless I give you the computer cycles you want."
"Let's just say I'd be very appreciative."
"That's extortion."
"Damn right it is," Gower said. His face was red with anger. "What do you want me to do with them?"
Rachel raised her eyebrows. "Are you going to take us to one of your back rooms?" She turned to Demanski. "If you lay a hand on any of these kids, I'll break you. And if you don't think I know how—"
"Easy, easy." Demanski held up his palms. "What exactly do you want?"
"Just computer cycles that aren't being used anyway. I'll run it by your IT guys, and you'll see it won't impact your business at all."
"It's a good deal, Demanski," Tavak said from the doorway. "Take it." He was wearing a tuxedo and looking completely different from the Tavak to whom Rachel had become accustomed.
Demanski stared at him. "Who in the hell are you? How did you get up here?"
Tavak came toward them. "Tavak. I'm a friend of Rachel's. I thought I should be here." He smiled. "Actually, I just wanted to be in on the fun."
Gower was obviously stunned. "Mr. Demanski, I swear I didn't let him up here."
"He's telling the truth," Tavak said. "I let myself in a couple of hours ago. I've been enjoying a private behind-the-scenes tour. Quite a place you have here."
"I'm glad you approve," Demanski said. "Am I to be told what the hell is going on here?"
Tavak produced his five silver keycards and tossed them onto the desk. "I knew that Hans Felder was behind all of your software security systems here. The trouble with a world-renowned mathematical genius for hire is that it's pretty easy to find documentation on how he thinks. I applied Dr. Kirby's algorithm to defeating his security encryption packages. After that, it was fairly simple to strike new security keycards that let me go pretty much anywhere I wanted. The one on top is a copy of yours, Demanski."
"Indeed." Demanski leaned back. "Is that supposed to make me feel threatened?"
"Maybe." He met Demanski's eyes. "Or maybe you can take it as a wake-up call."
"Yes, but it's my choice how I decide to take it."
Tavak shrugged. "Anyway, it also let me test Rachel's algorithm before she sent the students in here. I'd say it worked on both counts."
"Oh, it worked all right. Believe me, I'll be calling Dr. Felder to tell him just what he can do with his Nobel Prize."
Rachel stepped forward. "It's a win-win. You help us, we help you."
Demanski pointed to the cash on his desk. "And what about this?"
"Keep it. If you go back on your word, I can always come for more. A lot more."
Demanski stared down at the cash. "If I agree to this, I'll also need to know how you did it."
"Of course. This will save you money. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how your system worked, especially with the way you like to brag in interviews. Lucky for you, I figured it out first."
"Yeah, I'm a lucky guy."
"After you're up and running on my network, I'll tell your software experts everything they need to know to plug the hole. It's an easy fix."
Demanski sat on the edge of his desk, looking between Rachel, Tavak, and the stack of money. He finally nodded. "Part of being a good poker player is knowing when to fold. Okay, Dr. Kirby. You've got yourself a deal."
Rachel felt a wild surge of triumph. They'd done it!
Then, as she saw Demanski's expression, some of her elation ebbed away. She was suddenly aware of the immense power and intelligence that Demanski radiated. Backing Demanski into a corner was like going into a tiger's cage without a weapon.
Demanski's glance shifted to Tavak. "You took a big chance, Tavak. I don't like intruders in my space."