have to write a vivid note that would seize their attention, past all the cranks and weirdos who saw a conspiracy in every shadow and emailed their theories to the Agency. He needed to jump to the front of the line of incoming emails. On the CIA’s website he found a standard email form for people to share information or comments with the Agency.
He typed in the message page:
I have critical information for a CIA officer named August who was in Amsterdam several weeks ago. I offer serious, actionable dirt on the group called Novem Soles. This offer is only good for three days.
He entered in a prepaid cell phone number he’d bought after leaving Ricki’s apartment. He did not sign his name.
He reread the message. If he got too specific August might figure out who he was. This was tantalizing enough, he decided. He would talk to August and only August. August had kept him from being hurt worse; August had argued to leave him in the van, safe from danger.
He pressed Send. He stood, closed the laptop.
‘Mrs ten Boom, we should go.’
‘No. Nic will be here soon, won’t he?’ She was drunk again, a crooked smile back on her face. She’d refilled from one of the whisky bottles. ‘Nic will be here soon.’
Oh, God, Jack thought, he couldn’t leave her. But now that he’d contacted the CIA, he had to move quickly. He couldn’t be anchored with the old drunk woman. But he couldn’t leave her here either, in the horrible place of her son’s worst crimes.
‘Let’s go back to your place, Mrs ten Boom.’
She hit on the whisky bottle again and she lay down on the couch. ‘I want to stay here. Please.’
He stood watching her, and then he said, ‘Goodbye. Thanks for your help.’
She was asleep, holding onto the last shred of her son.
Jack Ming stumbled down the darkened stairs, clutching the most important book in the world to his chest.
10
NoLita, Manhattan
August Holdwine took the subway to NoLita, the neighborhood North of Little Italy. He walked under the bright morning sky. The safe house sat above a clothing boutique off Mott Street. He went inside and in the kitchen he found his trackers waiting for him. The guy who Sam had manhandled sat at the wooden table, sourly drinking a caffe latte, ignoring Cuban pastries they’d picked up from August’s favorite neighborhood cafe. Instead of eating he pecked on a laptop keyboard.
‘Writing up a report on how you got played last night?’ August asked.
‘A complaint against you for not taking Sam Capra into custody after he attacked me.’
‘Be smarter next time,’ August said. ‘Email that to me and my supervisor, if you must, but why don’t you think about it some more?’
‘You should have grabbed him,’ the tracker said. ‘We got you breakfast, by the way.’
‘Did you spit in it?’
‘Thought about it. Thought you’d make him come back here and talk.’
‘Detention hasn’t much worked with him in the past,’ August said.
‘So, finding this Mila woman, what do we do now?’ the woman tracker asked.
August considered. That thought had kept him awake much of the night. He was charged with finding Mila; but what if, despite Sam’s protestations, this Mila was helping Sam find his son? Was he going to interfere with that? Duty and friendship were often uneasy partners. But duty had to come first.
Didn’t it?
His phone rang. He answered and listened and hung up, then he went upstairs to a makeshift office and locked the doors. Then he called the CIA headquarters back.
We have a phone-in, Langley had told him on his secured phone. Asking specifically for you, to call him at this number. It’s an Amsterdam exchange. Prepaid phone, no record of owner. That only meant the phone had been purchased in Amsterdam; the caller could be anywhere.
It rang. Nine times. Nine. Novem. Did that mean something? Then a male voice came onto the phone. ‘Hello?’
The tracking would begin immediately, August thought. The phone was connected to a laptop, showing on its screen a map of the world. Numbers began to flash across the top as the software traced the caller’s location. ‘Yes. My name is August. I understand you’ve been trying to reach me.’
‘Yes. I have.’ Male, American. No discernible regional accent.
‘About a subject of mutual interest.’
‘Oh, my God, you sound like a bad movie,’ the voice said. Young, August thought, younger than me. ‘Novem Soles. You’re one of the guys looking for them, aren’t you?’ A slight shaking in the voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Well. I can give Novem Soles to you.’
‘How?’
‘I have information for sale.’
‘Information for sale,’ August repeated. He would be repeating much of what the caller said. It was a standard ploy to extend the call, simplify the trace.
‘The price is ten million dollars.’
‘I can’t pay that amount.’
The laptop screen’s map trimmed down where the call was originating from. Europe. Then western Europe.
‘They’ve got their fingers and reach into governments around the world. I think I am giving you a bargain.’
‘Let’s say I agree to the price. What are your terms?’
‘I will deliver the information to you and you will place the funds in a numbered account in the Caymans. I want immunity from prosecution for any crimes I may have committed. Then the CIA gives me a new identity. I want sanctuary where they can never find me, in an English-speaking country.’
August listened carefully. Did he know this voice? Its tone tugged on the frail strings of memory in his mind. ‘I can’t commit that kind of money without seeing what the proof is.’
‘I have the proof.’
‘What is it? Names? Locations? Operations?’
‘It’s a notebook.’
‘A notebook.’
‘Full of details on the people in government and business that Novem Soles owns.’
‘Scan the pages and email it to me.’
The call searcher narrowed. The Netherlands/Belgium/ Luxembourg glowed bright green on the map.
‘And once I’ve done that, then you have the proof, August, and I’m left out in the cold without money or immunity.’
‘What’s in the notebook?’
‘Everything you need to decapitate Novem Soles. They’re not just a criminal ring. They’re worse, a lot worse. It’ll be the best ten million you ever spent.’
‘How did you know my name?’
‘I have the information and I can either sell it to you or I can sell it to any other number of interested buyers.’ Not an answer to the question.
‘Well, I’d have to see the notebook, you understand that.’
‘I am willing to meet.’
‘Where? When?’
