“I will have to call you back. But no promises.”
“Look, fine, you and your friend get fried. I don’t care. Good luck to you.” I hung up.
Mila raised an eyebrow. “You hooked him hard.”
I didn’t answer her.
“Sam.”
“What?”
“Don’t let emotion trip you up.”
“I’m not emotional. Do you see emotion? I am the embodiment of a poker face right now.”
“This Money Czar. If he was working with the scarred man, if he was the money man, why would the scarred man kill him? And why would they kill him this way? Two bullets in the head and dumped into a canal is far easier.”
I didn’t have an answer, and that was part of the problem. Two birds: the scarred man made Yasmin Zaid look like a murderer and he’d eliminated the Money Czar-but why? I had assumed the scarred man bombed our office to protect the Money Czar. Clearly not.
The phone rang in my hand. I let it ring five times.
“He’s pissing himself,” Mila said.
I let it ring twice more before I answered. “Yes?”
“I might be able to get you some work. Just understand that my boss is extremely cautious right now.”
I’ll bet he is, I thought. “I like a cautious boss.”
“I will meet you at the bar we were at last night and take you to Piet.”
“No. In the open, the sunlight. Where I can see you and your friends coming. I know a bar…” But then Mila was shaking her head. “No, I tell you what, Nic, as a show of good faith, you pick.”
“Do you know the Pelikaan Cafe on the Singel?”
Mila nodded. I said, “Yes.”
“Meet me there. Noon.”
“All right. I’ll see you at noon.” Nic hung up.
“Well.” Mila unclipped her earpiece. “They bit. But they might well grab you, force you to talk someplace of their choosing. There will be no immediate trust. We’ll have to prepare for that eventuality.”
“Why not have them meet here on our turf?”
“Because I wish to protect our turf,” she said. “You must treat the Rode Prins as your safe house. I know the Pelikaan. I know what we will do. Hurry, we don’t have much time.” She rose and I touched her arm.
“Did you get a hold of Bahjat Zaid?”
“No,” she said. “No one seems to know where he is.”
“Look, I think he gave them something from his office in Hungary, the one that Yasmin works at. That’s what they’re smuggling across Europe.”
She bit her lip.
“He’s an arms manufacturer, Mila. What the hell is he giving these people? He’s paying ransoms and they’re never going to give her back to him.”
“You and I have our orders, Sam. We rescue Yasmin, eliminate her kidnappers as witnesses and as a threat. Do that, and you don’t need to worry about whatever he gave him.”
“Do you know? Be totally honest with me.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, and I believed her.
“I still have to know what they want to get to America.”
“First things first. Yasmin. This gang. That’s the way to find out the truth about your wife, Sam. Stay focused.” Her voice got a new steel to it. “I have some leverage for you with Nic. Most unpleasant.”
“What?”
“On his computer.” She opened a file. Photos. Photos of youngsters, in awful, provocative poses. Boys, girls, a range of ages, a range of poses, from coy to hardcore. I saw a list of names, of e-mails. I looked away.
“He’s a child molester?”
“Perhaps. At the least he is a broker of smut. It seems that if you want a photo to your specifications-Nic can provide it.” The steel in her voice faded and she cursed under her breath.
I thought of the odd glance he’d given the little girl in the cafe by Dam Square last night, and felt ill. “Okay. That’s leverage. I can force his hand.”
“And then,” Mila said, “you can cut it off.”
40
Howell studied the video feed in the security center at the Rotterdam train station. There. The cameras caught the man he’d seen on the port coverage that looked like Sam Capra. The blond-haired pixie in the huge sunglasses walking a few steps in front of him.
“The train they’re boarding?” he said.
“That was the 10:15 service to Amsterdam,” August said, checking a train itinerary.
“I want every record of a pair of tickets bought together on a credit card.”
“They could have paid cash, or used a prepaid ticket,” August said.
“Or they could have made a mistake,” Howell said.
Ten minutes later Howell had a name, en route to Amsterdam. Most people traveling on the 10:15 service already had their tickets; but one pair, in car five, were charged to a credit card belonging to a woman named Fernanda Gatil.
He called the CIA office in Amsterdam and gave them the name, requested a full workup on Fernanda Gatil, told them to put her name out on the wire to the Dutch border stations. He wanted to know where she worked, where she lived, every detail of her life. He wanted photo enhancement on the images pulled from the train station security cameras; he wanted to know who this woman was and why she was traveling with a man he felt reasonably sure was Sam Capra.
41
Ten after noon.
Nic the scumbag was late. I sat outside the Pelikaan, on the south side of the canal, sipping a half-pint of Heineken. The sunlight shimmered on the water.
I wondered, for the first time, who the Turk was that Zaid had hired. A soldier of fortune? An actual smuggler? Someone, like me, with his own personal vendetta against the scarred man? Bahjat Zaid was a panicked father who hadn’t put his entire trust into Mila or her secret employers. After I calmed down a bit on the way to this meeting, I could not blame him. I didn’t know if my child was dead or alive, either.
I was getting closer to the truth and to Lucy. I knew it. This was the most important meeting of my life. I tried not to sweat. I tried not to think too much. Just play the right note and I’d be in.
Nic worked his way through the strolling Saturday crowds. He gave everything and everyone a disdainful glare. He did not look happy.
He sat across from me. In the daylight he looked pasty, robbed of sleep. I wondered if he’d figured out he’d had an intruder in his room, parsing his hideous secrets. But probably none of them had slept well last night after learning of the Turk’s attempt to infiltrate them.
“Hello,” I said. I absolutely had to keep the contempt from my voice. I know what you are.
“I’m having a very bad day,” he said. The waiter stopped by the table; Nic ordered a Coke. The waiter brought it and vanished. No one sat near us.
“So. This Turk compromised your route?”
“It was all bluff,” Nic said. “The Turk was a liar.”
