all on red

by nick nelson

at this time tomorrow, whitey thought, i will either be dead or the richest man in the world, maybe the richest man who ever lived. and if i win, if all goes according to plan, i will have earned every penny, after seventeen years of planning and waiting. seventeen years since he first got the idea. three years of scouting out the seven specialists he would use for his clockwork plan. another three years of contacting them, while staying in the shadows and staying anonymous. persuading them to go along with his plan, convincing them it would be worth the wait. carefully giving them the code their instructions would be sent to them in. none of the seven knew each other, or if they did, knew exactly who was in on it, or knew that whitey was the mastermind at the center of the web. so it was all set up - ten years in advance. the hardest part was the waiting. because you had to wait. you had to wait out the web of surveillance that covered not just the planet but the whole solar system. the interplanetary police tracked everything. every communication that took place between two or more entities anywhere in the solar system. but whitey heard, from a reliable guy, that they had an eight year rotation of their data. after eight years, anything they had not flagged as suspicious got wiped out. so if whitey sent the codes, and then sent the instructions ten years later - waiting an extra two years just to be safe - the messages would not be connected up to the original codes and it should be smooth sailing. the seven had received their codes. as instructed, they had not responded to them. and when they got the messages ten years later they did not respond to those ether but committed them to memory and deleted them as spam. the seven were - marco, the magician, who would create the diversion. margo, the babe, who would use her ancient powers of sorcery. rube, the human cannonball. harry, the hypnotist for the east side. wanda, the hypnotist for the west side alberto, the assassin, who would cover the rear. danny, the driver. they all knew exactly what to do, would they do it? you had to have faith. * the hour finally arrived, and whitey entered the front door of the casino and headed for the roulette table, where he would set the whole thing in motion. when he was twenty feet from the roulette table he was stopped by two guys in blue suits and red ties. are you whitey lincoln? the bigger of the two asked. what was the point of denying it? that’s me, whitey admitted. i am agent carter and this is agent little. i think you know what we want. what went wrong? whitey asked plaintively. i heard i had eight years before my codes got scrubbed. you got told wrong or heard wrong, agent carter said. it is eighteen years, not eight. i guess that explains it. say, guys, i only got twenty dollars in my pocket. can you let me have one spin at the table with it? just one. sure, why not? i guess you want to buy yourself some snacks when you are breaking rocks on jupiter. but just one spin. we have a timetable here. whitey put it all on red. the black came up. as he was being led out the door, whitey said, i guess you guys must have a real sense of satisfaction nailing me, with a plan like i had. no, said agent little, we pick up guys like you every day. real smart guys with real big plans. agent carter added, who put it all on red.