“Who are you?” asked Littleton. His tone was not cordial.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Who do you work for?”
“Vortex,” she said.
“I mean who do you really work for? Amnesty International? Some other NGO with a left-wing agenda?”
“I work for your company,” she said.
Littleton tightened his stare, saying nothing, or rather letting his silence do the talking. Andie didn’t flinch, but she noticed the file folder on the seat next to him. Littleton picked it up, opened it, and said, “Bad weather or not, there’s a plane waiting for you.”
“Yes, I understand I’m being activated.”
He smiled sardonically, then shook his head. “You’re not being activated.”
“What’s the problem?”
Littleton pulled a photograph from the file, switched on the interior spotlight in the ceiling, and held the before her eyes. “This is Olga,” he said.
Olga looked to be at least six feet tall and about 180 pounds of solid muscle and steroids. The tight black hot pants, studded leather jacket, and black lipstick were straight out of Capital Pleasures. Her head was shaved, except for a single wisp of red hair that hung in her eyes. Her nose, lips, and ears were pierced with multiple metal rings, and she had her mouth wide open to reveal the tongue piercing. Tattoos covered her neck and right arm, mostly Chinese characters and random figures that vaguely resembled them. Andie took special notice, but she didn’t recognize any gang symbols.
“Olga is one of our most successful level-five activations,” said Littleton.
He returned the photograph to the file and removed another. “This is the last person we sent to meet Olga.”
Andie tried to show no reaction, but the difference between her level-one activation and level five was more dramatic than she’d thought. Olga appeared to be removing the man’s pubic hair with her teeth.
Littleton closed the file and put it aside, but he laid the last photograph faceup on the seat, where Andie could still see it.
“We can go one of two ways here,” he said. “You can tell me who you are and what you’re doing here. Or we can put you on that airplane, you can meet Olga, and you can tell her.”
Andie glanced at the photo, then back at Littleton. “I told you the truth. Would you like me to tell you again?”
Littleton’s smile was even more condescending than the last one. “Yes, tell me again,” he said as he switched off the light.
The partition behind her head slid open and Bahena grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head back. Andie was staring up at the base of his chin. Even in the darkness, she could tell that he was enjoying himself.
“But this time,” said Littleton, “Danilo will make sure you don’t lie to me.”
“You’re making a mistake,” said Andie, her heart pounding.
“No,” said Littleton. “You made the mistake.”
Chapter Seventy-three
Poplar is the nearest tube station to the Billingsgate Fish Market, but with a quarter million pounds in her backpack, Shada sprang for a cab. The market complex covers thirteen acres, and the driver dropped her as close as he could to the trading hall. Doors opened at four A.M., and as Shada approached the entrance, buyers were already walking out with fish. The surrounding neighborhood wasn’t the Cockney crime scene of Hawthorne’s day-“a dirty, evil-smelling, crowded precinct, thronged with people carrying fish on their heads.” But it was still the East End before dawn, and the shadows were plenty dark. Shada tried not to look paranoid by checking over her shoulder too often as she hurried into the building.
Habib had called it the busiest place in London before sunrise, and once inside, Shada found that was no exaggeration. Billingsgate merchants sell over twenty-five thousand tons of fish and fish products annually, much of it straight out of ice-packed coolers at one of ninety-eight booths in the trading hall. The floors were wet, the noise was constant, and with open warehouse doors inviting January inside, Shada kept her coat on. Porters wore traditional white sailcloth smocks, and salesmen didn’t just sit on their coolers and wait for the fish to go bad. Like the fishmongers of old, they made sales by pulling people in and outshouting one another’s claims of freshness- most with civility, a few with the age-old flair that put the second definition of “Billingsgate” in the dictionary: coarse, vulgar language.
“Best halibut in the world right here, ma’am.”
The porter’s Scottish accent brought Shada to a stop. “I’m looking for the cafe,” she said.
“Straightaway,” he said, pointing.
She looked ahead, then checked over her shoulder. It felt like she was being watched, and she didn’t think she was paranoid.
“Thank you,” she said, moving on toward the cafe.
Jack was trying to keep a safe distance, watching from behind a merchant’s signage for FRESH PRAWNS. A borrowed winter coat and knit cap from Reza made him less recognizable. Shada was wearing a yellow scarf that made her easy to spot in a crowd. She was in his sights, and he could see her conversing with a porter, but Jack wasn’t hearing any of it over the borrowed cell phone. Too much background noise in the hall, perhaps. Jack continued to follow her down a long and crowded row, passing booth after booth, cooler after cooler. Halibut from Scotland. Trout and salmon from Norway. Lobster and eel from New Zealand.
I wonder where they keep the psychopaths from Somalia.
From just beyond a booth offering smoked fish, he watched as Shada entered the cafe, bought a cup of coffee, and took a seat at an open table. She looked around, and Jack tried to remain inconspicuous by moving to another booth and feigning interest in a cooler of tuna steaks. A man entered the cafe and approached Shada, which caught Jack’s attention. Jack put Reza’s phone to his ear, trying again to eavesdrop, but he heard nothing, even though the man was clearly asking a question. Shada answered him-something along the lines of “this seat is taken,” Jack surmised. The man left her alone. A false alarm-but there was still reason for concern. Jack made a quick call to Chuck.
“She’s at the cafe, but I can’t overhear anything with this phone Reza gave me.”
“He should have known better,” said Chuck. “The spyware won’t pick up conversations if she has her cell phone tucked away in her purse or her pocket.”
Great, thought Jack, and then an idea came to him. “Can you make her phone ring without displaying an incoming number?”
“I can make her phone sing ‘God Save the Queen,’ if I want to.”
“Then make it ring.”
“What for?”
“Just make it ring, but hang up and don’t let her know where the call came from.”
Jack ended the call and watched. Thirty seconds later, Shada dug her cell phone out of her coat pocket and answered it. From her reaction, Jack knew it was Chuck’s prank ring. She looked around, a little nervous. Jack crossed his fingers.
Don’t put it away.
She laid the phone on the table in front of her, as if waiting for it to ring again.
That’s it, Shada. Leave it right there.
The crank call left Shada a little jittery. It was odd that no incoming number had flashed on the display. She kept one eye on the phone and one on the active trading hall as she waited for the cell to ring again.
Her feet hurt and she needed sleep, but she wasn’t sure how long she could sit and wait. She was too on edge to stay in one place. The knots in the back of her neck were like golf balls, and if she came through this ordeal without a stomach ulcer, it would be a miracle. No one would ever understand. She had no one to talk to about it anyway. She certainly couldn’t tell Chuck or Jack everything there was to tell about Habib and her.
