Virus Hunters 1: A Medical Thriller by Bobby Akart

Author:Bobby Akart [Akart, Bobby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown Publishers Inc.
Published: 2020-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

Gold Palace Hotel

Fremont Street Experience

Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada

The hotel’s limousine pulled Harper and her team into a private, VIP entrance of the hotel that was secured away from paparazzi and casual onlookers. It provided their high rollers and celebrities a modicum of privacy, at least for their arrival. Once in the hotel, most of the celebs couldn’t help but mingle with their fans although some requested private gaming tables be set up in their spacious hotel suites on the top floors.

As soon as they exited the car, they retrieved their trunks full of PPE gear, sample-gathering equipment, and field-testing devices. They immediately suited up and waited to take an elevator through the hidden service corridors of the hotel to the twenty-third floor. Bellhops were replaced by hotel security. Concierge personnel were replaced by the highest levels of hotel management.

In addition, the presence of beefed-up security did not escape Harper’s attention. Since the Mandalay Bay shooting in October 2017, casino hotels in Las Vegas had spent tens of millions of dollars on sweeping new security measures, including armed private SWAT teams trained by former FBI, CIA, and military experts. Most of the teams had K-9 units, undercover detection squads—a staple of hotel security for decades, and hidden metal detectors designed to identify the presence of weapons as they might enter the hotel.

“Welcome to the Gold Palace,” a heavyset man greeted them. His gold-plated name tag read Mr. Wallace, General Manager. Harper glanced around the private entrance. It was not unlike the rest of the hotel. Everything, right down to Wallace’s name tag, exuded opulence in the form of shiny gold, or at least the polished metal equivalent.

He stretched out his arm to shake hands. Harper didn’t reciprocate, but she did smile to the man as she spoke.

“Thank you, Mr. Wallace. I wish we were here under different circumstances. My name is Dr. Harper Randolph. I’ll be your point of contact while we’re conducting our investigation. My second is Dr. Elizabeth Becker.” Harper pointed over her shoulder, and Becker waved at the portly GM.

“Well, I certainly hope you can make heads or tails of what’s happened here so we can go about the cleanup process. The local authorities, bless them all, are certainly befuddled by all of this. It looks like a suicide to me. We are the suicide capital of America, you know.”

Harper inwardly rolled her eyes, but outwardly maintained her poker face. She wanted to ask the GM why, in his concerted opinion, did more people take their lives in Las Vegas than anywhere else in the nation. Any guesses, Mr. Wallace? Could it be the loss of their life savings? Maybe dropping the equivalent of their mortgage payment at the blackjack table? Maybe it was the dad who gambled away his paycheck before he bought his baby’s formula?

“Okay, we’d like to get started. Have the bodies remained in place as we requested?”

“Yes, ma’am,” a man dressed in a forest green uniform replied from behind Wallace. “I’m Alejandro Figueroa, chief of security.

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