for a contest: “Many will enter, few will win.” The many have failed. No winners so far.’
‘People have already been trying to kill you?’ I felt a creep of shock along my skin. I’d been worried about the CIA finding her. But they just wanted to talk to her. August didn’t want her dead.
She didn’t shrug again, because I think she read me and she knew pretend indifference would only make me mad. ‘Look. There is a man who is very angry at me. I humiliated him. It was worse than killing him.’
‘Who?’
‘Not anyone who you should care to know, Sam.’
‘Who, Mila?’
‘We get Daniel back first, then we will worry about my problems.’ She smiled. ‘I know how Daniel dominates your every thought. I am flattered you are concerned about me.’
I felt a sick mix of rage and annoyance and fear for her. Mila is not exactly my friend. She’s not exactly my boss. I don’t know what exactly she is but I could hardly let her be targeted and killed. If I wasn’t going to give her up to August I sure as hell wasn’t going to give her up to some hired killer.
‘And once you have Daniel, you will want a calmer, quieter life, Sam. This is only natural.’
‘There is no way that I am abandoning you.’
‘Life is a series of abandonings.’ She finished the Pellegrino. ‘Now. How did you know that my head had a price tag attached to it?’
‘August told me when I talked with him at The Last Minute.’
‘It’s flattering to be on his radar screen. I must have a file at the CIA now. How exciting. What percentage of the world has a file there? Minuscule. I feel special.’ She inspected her nails again. ‘Should I friend August on Facebook?’
‘He wants me to hand you over to them so you can tell them what you know about Novem Soles and who you work for. They are intensely interested in you.’
‘I am interested in August. In what he can find out. In how good he is. And in who will try and kill him when he finds out more about Novem Soles.’
‘You still think there are people working for Novem Soles inside the CIA.’
‘It’s a given.’ She watched the football player; he’d made friends with two blondes who looked like they’d missed the turn to the Playboy mansion. ‘If August is good at his job, likely he will die. If he is bad, he will retire and get a nice gold watch because he was never a threat to anyone.’
‘Do you know if there’s a mole?’
‘Of course not. And I am hurt you think I would keep such juicy gossip quiet. Plus, if I knew, I would sell his name to the CIA. I adore free markets.’
‘You told me when we met that you’d seen the tapes of when the Company interrogated me,’ I said. ‘You have your own mole inside.’
Again the sideways glance. ‘Well, I didn’t find the tapes on YouTube, Sam. If you must know I stole them off the server.’
‘You stole data off a CIA server.’ I didn’t want to know more.
‘I am making you nervous,’ Mila said. ‘I’ll go upstairs and wait for our friend to arrive. I’ll keep an eye on the cameras.’ I watched her go up the stairs at the back of the bar.
Anna Tremaine was coming.
The crowd had filled out, the bartenders moving in a constant blur of service. The music pulsed. I scanned the crowd, looking for anyone suspicious who might be here backing Anna. But maybe she didn’t need or want security. Maybe this would be easy. She didn’t know she was coming onto my turf. For me, the bar was both public and private. So many potential witnesses around would tie her hands but I could get her upstairs and then I’d have the truth.
But I felt haunted by the person who’d been watching me do the parkour run. Maybe the driver had just been curious. Maybe it was nothing more. Maybe I hadn’t made a mistake.
What would you do to get your son back?
It was the simplest question in the world, with the simplest answer. But if I made the wrong move, I could easily end up dead, or in prison, or with Daniel no safer than he was now.
Right now, somewhere, a husband and a wife were holding my child, calling him their own. Did they even know he was stolen? Did they care? Did they love him as much as I did, though I’d never even held him?
Here she came.
Anna Tremaine. I recognized her from the video in the French clinic. She was a tall woman, with wide shoulders and the bearing of an athlete. Graceful. Men noticed her as she walked through the crowd; you could see gazes flickering to her as she moved. She was dressed in black fitted jeans and a colorful shirt and an aquamarine and silver choker covered her ivory throat. She was coming, though not from the front door but from the back, where the restrooms were. Maybe she’d slipped in a back entrance. She looked about thirty, raven-dark hair, a hard, cold face that was beautiful in technical proportions, but not because of warmth or kindness.
I stayed perfectly still as she sat down across from me. I didn’t stand.
This was the woman who’d stolen my child. All I wanted to do was to fling the table aside and close my hands around that bejeweled throat and force her to tell me where Daniel was. That time would come. Now I had to prime the trap.
‘Mr Derwatt?’
‘Yes, hello. Ms Tremaine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your drink.’ I gestured at the martini she’d asked to have ready as a sign. It sat, a bit warm, three olives. She could choke on them as soon as I made her tell me where Daniel was.
‘That was only for an identifier. A bottle of Amstel Light, and please tell the waiter to open it at the table.’
Very cautious. She didn’t want to risk a drug being slipped into her drink. I waved over a waiter, repeated the order. I kept my voice steady. This was a business meeting and she was treating it like a potential trap. Which it was, of course.
‘Your wife isn’t here?’ Her voice was soft. I suppose you think a woman who steals and peddles babies would sound like the creaking crone from a fairy tale. She sounded educated. A French accent, but very slight, as though she spent most of her time conversing in English.
‘My wife is considerably nervous about this arrangement. She’s upstairs. She wants to continue to pursue conventional adoption but… ’ I shrugged. I felt sweat trickle down my spine, dampen my armpits. I didn’t get this nervous in a fight. Then my mind shut clear and I knew what I would have to do. This was worse than crossing a minefield. But she was here in my bar, my home ground, and she wasn’t leaving without telling me where my son was.
The waiter returned with her bottle of Amstel. He opened it for her at the table, she thanked him, he left, and then she took a long sip. ‘Your wife isn’t upstairs. Your wife, technically your ex-wife, is in a CIA-run hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, in a coma from which she is unlikely ever to recover. She’s your ex not because you are an asshole who divorced a critically ill wife but because she’s a traitor who saved your life and then tried to kill you when you came after her. She picked the wrong side and she paid the price.’
I kept my gaze locked on hers. Well. Anna Tremaine was no fool.
‘Your name isn’t Frank Derwatt, it’s Sam Capra.’ She took a dainty sip of beer. ‘You enjoy playing monkey in empty buildings when you’re not creating trouble for us.’
Fine. Who needs masks? ‘Where’s my son, Anna?’
‘See, I know more about you than you do about me. Anna’s not my real name.’
‘Where’s my son?’ I leaned forward. I could produce the Browning under my jacket in one second. I didn’t care if I set off a panic in The Canyon. She was going to tell me.
‘An hour ago, a friend of mine left a half-pound of C-4 explosive in the ladies’ room.’ Her smile went coy. She uttered her threat in the same tone as you might say I love what you’ve done with the place . ‘The trigger is under my control. You raise a hand against me and this bar burns, with everyone in it.’ She glanced at the partiers, the light pulsing in time to the music, laughing, drinking, oblivious. ‘I can’t say they’d be a real loss. These people are nothing, they serve no purpose.’
‘Unlike selling children.’ I battled the rage rising in my chest. The rage was like a strange heat. I had killed
