Free The Scam by Janet Evanovich Page A

chips is clean.”
    “How do the junkets make money on the deal?” Jake asked.
    “By imposing a surcharge on all of their services and by requiring the gamblers to wager a certain amount of money over the course of their VIP play. The junket takes forty percent of whatever the house brings in at the tables. The casino takes the other sixty percent.”
    “That’s crazy,” Jake said. “Why doesn’t the casino get rid of the middleman and deal directly with the high rollers themselves?”
    “Risk avoidance. A lot of these high rollers come from countries like China, where it’s virtually impossible for the casinos to collect on gambling debts. But the casinos
can
collect from the junket operator, who assumes all of the financial and legal risks,” Nick said. “It’s the junket operator, not the casino, who has the relationship with the players. If anybody ever asks, the casino can say they don’t have any idea who the gamblers are in those VIP rooms or how much money they’re winning or losing.”
    “So how do we take down Trace by running a junket?” Kate asked.
    “We’re going to bring a Canadian mobster and a Somali warlord to Trace’s casino in Macau to launder their dirty cash,” Nick said. “Only the two bad guys will be our friends playing parts, and the money they’ll be washing will be ours. We go in, we gamble, we leave.”
    “Which will establish our credibility as junket operators if anybody asks Côte d’Argent about us,” Kate said.
    Jake smiled. “Someone like Lono Alika.”
    “Now you’re catching on,” Nick said. “We’re going to invite Alika on a gambling junket to launder his money with us. We’ll go back to Macau with him and our two fake bad guys, wash his cash and ours, and everybody leaves happy.”
    “You seem to be missing the part where we put the criminals in jail,” Kate said. “So far we’re just washing our money and making the bad guys richer.”
    “We’re going to have to bait the trap for Alika first,” Nick said. “He isn’t going to go all in on the laundering scheme the first time around. He’ll gamble only a little of what he has and see how it goes. Once he discovers how well the washing machine works, he’ll come rushing back to us to launder all of the cash that he’s been hoarding. Only this time, I’m going to run away with his money, leaving him broke and Trace holding the bag.”
    “That’s a dangerous play,” Jake said. “I like that you’re ruining Alika, but he and his Yakuza backers will be in a bloody rage. They’ll go after you and Trace.”
    “I’m counting on it,” Nick said. “That’s what makes Alika the key element of this con. We need to scare the crap out of Trace. We want him to absolutely believe that his life is in serious danger.”
    “It
will
be,” Jake said. “The Yakuza take revenge to extremes.”
    “It won’t come to that,” Nick said. “Before there is any real threat, Kate is going to reveal herself to Trace as an undercover FBI agent.”
    “What will my story be?” Kate asked.
    “That you’ve spent two long years infiltrating Nick Sweet’s criminal operation to bring him down, but now that he’s in the wind, you’re screwed and looking for a way to turn a disaster into a win,” Nick said. “So you’ll offer Trace protection from the Yakuza, the Canadian mob, and the Somali warlords if he agrees to rat out all of the terrorists, despots, and crooks that he’s ever helped. Or you could keep him in business as an FBI front and gather invaluable intelligence. Either way, Trace will jump at the offer.”
    Kate smiled at her dad. “He’s good.”
    “Not as good as you,” Jake said. “Because you caught him.”
    “Hey,” Nick said. “Whose side are you on?”
    “Kate’s,” Jake said. “Always.”
    Nick nodded. “As it should be.”
    “I think your scam is great,” Jake said, “but in the meantime, I’m not convinced that Harlan will be safe from Alika. So there’s something