up the food chain.
But then, so could I.
“What’s your beef with your boss?”
“Brains make more money than brute force.” The hacker didn’t like the muscle.
“No doubt you’re smarter than your boss.”
“There is no doubt. Piet is a moronic whoreson. He waves a sword around, if you can believe it. A sword. Do you know how unprofessional that appears?” The superior tone I’d heard in his voice last night returned.
“What is it you’re shipping?”
“They’re not large packages, but they must be well hidden. Extremely valuable and not easily replaced.”
“Not an answer. What is it?”
“That you need not know. It is not toxic or poisonous or dangerous.”
I didn’t believe him. But I didn’t press it. Not now. I had a new card to play. Basically, Nic wanted me to tattle on Piet, make him look bad, hope that the scarred man would cut Piet down. Even loose networks are brimming with egos and ambitions. This might be the fastest road to the scarred man.
“You want this job, you’ll help me,” Nic pressed.
“And I design you a perfect route to smuggle your goodies, with documentation and containers and a well- greased captain and the right bribes, and you take my route, and you shut me out? No.”
“We must trust each other a little, Sam. I’m proposing you and I work together; this job, all the other jobs that come. I’m in demand right now, and I need a partner who’s not an idiot and is reliable. I don’t want to have a boss who thinks he’s a ninja.”
I put an edge of nervousness into my voice. “Look, I’m going to put my ass on the line here. I don’t know you people. I’ve got resources to smuggle whatever you need smuggled, but I need appropriate guarantees.” I sounded like a man who was talking too much, and that’s what I wanted Nic to think. I wanted a scent of desperation, to close the deal. But to close it with someone with power. “If you can’t give them to me, I need to talk to someone who can.”
“I can’t take you to Piet’s boss. Doesn’t work that way.”
Compartmentalize. Keep each node of the network safe. That was clearly their operating standard here. It was smart. “Then we’re done.” Bluff time. I stood.
He needed me. I knew that. I was his chance for a power grab.
“There is a great deal at stake,” Nic said.
“The only great deal I care about is a great deal of money.”
“You will get a cut and a bonus for helping me oust Piet.”
“Can’t I get a job without bloodshed?”
“Not these days.” He lowered his voice. “Look, we need our goods moved from Rotterdam to New York. I don’t know where the goods are right now except they’re on their way to Holland from Hungary. Piet knows, all right? You can talk with him and see if you’re willing to take this on. Both the smuggling job and helping me get him out of the game.”
That was as much as I could hope for now. “All right. Let’s go.” And then I saw Howell. Hurrying down the north side of the Singel canal. Heading in our direction. Behind him walked August. I kept my smile in place.
It meant we’d made a mistake. But Mila had left a trail for us to follow if that happened.
Then I saw Howell and August and another man, clearly a Company agent, turn hard into the doorway of an Internet cafe. A neon coffee cup steamed in the window. Same building where Mila was watching from the top floor.
Choice: help Mila or go with Nic. I wanted to help her. But I couldn’t walk away from Nic. That way led to Lucy and my son.
I followed him, wondering how Howell had found us. From the ID check Nic had done? Maybe, if his associate who searched for the Peter Samson name had hit an electronic tripwire.
Nic walked directly beside me, hand across my shoulders. I couldn’t look behind me. Couldn’t see Mila. I had to think of a way to warn her.
“Trouble is coming,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Nic jerked a glance behind us.
“You. Playing your boss.”
“He won’t be my boss for long.”
“I had a boss once, a guy named Howell,” I said in a conversational way, “a total ass, and I feel he’s always behind me.”
“Then you should have dealt with him the way I’m going to deal with Piet.”
I couldn’t say more. I had to trust that Mila had deciphered my warning. I had to go with Nic, and I knew he’d search me. The earpiece was a liability; he would find it. The moment Nic pulled up ahead of me I tore the tiny earpiece from my ear and dropped it on the street. I left the transmitter in place. I wanted Mila to hear every precious word.
43
Mila hurried from the empty office space and ran down the narrow staircase. Howell was close; if he interfered in the sting, all was lost. The top three floors were offices; the ground floor housed a small Internet cafe, popular with students and college-age tourists. She reached the bottom foyer; to her right was Cafe Sprong. Right now the Internet cafe held a half-dozen surprised kids, hands lifted off their keyboards. Three men in suits stood inside, two holding guns. An older man-she recognized him from the Company files as Howell-was saying, “Just everyone stay calm, we’re working with the Dutch police.” He was hurrying from laptop to laptop, clicking on the keyboards. Searching.
They’d found her and Sam.
The one closest to the door grabbed at her arm. He was a big man, blond, Scandinavian-looking, with apple- florid cheeks.
Mila fought down the overwhelming urge to throw him through the neon-coffee-cup window. “Excuse me,” she said in a low, hard growl.
He didn’t raise the gun but he pulled her inside. “This is police business. Do not be alarmed, we are seeking a criminal. Were you accessing the cafe’s Internet connection?” he said to her in slightly mangled Dutch. She shrugged like she didn’t understand.
“Is this a joke?” she said in English, braving a smile. “Or a movie?”
“Do you have a laptop? Or a smartphone?” he asked in English. “Were you on the web?”
“No.” She only had a small purse. The wireless kit she’d used to talk with Sam was taped to the small of her back, under her suit jacket. Her gun lay strapped to her ankle. He looked inside her purse, found her smartphone. He tapped her browser. She waited.
The big man put the phone back in her purse. “Thank you. Police business. Please don’t try to leave.” So she didn’t.
But if they were looking for her-shouldn’t they have just rushed to the roof? Perhaps not. Maybe they knew she was here but not who she was. She stayed put, but every muscle was singing. Howell didn’t have a weapon out. She decided how she would fight; the order in which she would kill them. The big blond, and then the dark- haired man, then Howell. The decision put her mind at rest and she watched Howell like everyone else.
The barista argued in Polish-accented Dutch with the armed men that they couldn’t just come in here and do this, and the men ignored him. Howell stepped away from a frightened girl to a back table where a young Chinese student sat. The boy’s hands quivered above the keys and Mila thought: He looks quite guilty.
She watched Howell turn the laptop away from the Chinese boy, study it, tap on the keys. Mila could see a terminal window appear on the screen. A spill of data, white letters on a black screen.
Howell closed the laptop, gestured with one hand toward the gunmen. The big blond hurried forward, frisked the boy roughly, nodded an all-clear.
“Outside,” said Howell in English.
